


Millionare Meets World

by primela



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Slow Burn, characters not tagged in any specific order
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:08:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26819323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primela/pseuds/primela
Summary: Enter Oikawa Tooru, the heir to a successful name in Japanese business. Money, power, influence; the Oikawas have it all—or so it seems. When Tooru is caught in an affair with one Iwaizumi Hajime, he’s cut off from his wealth and deemed ‘an embarrassment to the family name’, all for being gay. Now he has to learn how to survive without being waited on hand and foot by a butler—without being funded by an endless wallet. Luckily enough, Iwaizumi, his one-night stand, offers him a place to stay until everything resolves itself, but it’s a far cry from the comfort of his penthouse.Among the adjustments of his new life, Tooru has to regain his family’s respect before it’s too late, but something unsuspected shackles him to the trash-riddled hole-in-the-wall apartment, and it’s not the Chinese takeout.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 37
Kudos: 44





	1. Contentedness in Comparison with Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> TW!
> 
> homophobia, internalized homophobia, sexual content

If there’s one thing Tooru is confident in, it’s his ability to charm a room of people into submission with nothing but a smile. It was the first thing his father taught him—how to command attention, how to steal the spotlight without speaking a single word. “If you want to run the company, you better know how to charm a lady first,” his father said to him when he was fresh out of Year 4 and ready to take on the world, bright-eyed and rearing for a chance to prove his worth.

He had thought the phrasing was strange, but took the advice nonetheless, and in Oikawa Tooru style, worked until he perfected it. It wasn’t easy for him to do, taking a soft, honest smile and sharpening it into something deadly, but he spent hours sitting in front of the enormous, jeweled mirror in his mother’s bathroom, smiling until his lips were chapped and his cheeks ached. Perfection, for him, was inevitable—it was only a matter of how long it took to get there, and he’s never been patient.

When his father finally noticed the fruit of his efforts a year later, all he said was, “Fix your posture too. People don’t want to follow a man who slouches,” and that was that. Tooru felt the words like a stab through the heart, but his mask never slipped, especially not in front of his father. Silently, he thanked the mirror for raising him well.

Now, in his third year of university, he’s grateful his father was so harsh on him. Now, with the crinkled, eager eyes of old men staring at him—men who have too much money then they know what to do with—he realizes that his father was only trying to teach him the traits necessary of a leader.

“...and I visited him in the hospital. It’s terrible, it really is,” Tooru says, his frown not entirely fake, but still schooled enough that it’s not a mess of unattractive wrinkles. “Oikawa Solutions recognizes the terrible conditions these sick children have to live in, it really tugs at my heart. That’s what this fundraiser is all about, right? Helping these poor kids to have something to keep them going, some hope, and I’m honored, truly, to be a part of something bigger than myself.”

Truthfully, Tooru had visited no one in the hospital—nobody in his family has been to a hospital in years, even to just visit, but it adds credibility to his story if he pretends he has. It enraptures the men in front of him, all eyes following every swish of his hands, shrug of his shoulders, starving for him. Tooru sees nothing but their wallets.

“So, I really hope you will consider donating to Oikawa Solutions’ new foundation. I oversaw its development myself. It’s dedicated to the kids and the kids alone—” Lie, ten percent of donations go to Oikawa Solutions, as written in the fine print. “—and every penny helps. Thank you guys for coming out here, and I hope to see all your names on the Donation List!”

Another charming smile and a skillful change of subject away from morbid truths leads to a successful close of a deal. Not that it’s official yet, but Tooru can tell from the glint in their eyes that they’re about to do their good deed for the year. It’s hard to keep his mask from slipping into a smug grin, but he manages to play the role of the CEO’s son a little longer. Smugness is an awful look on a future leader.

He excuses himself to get a drink, or at least pretend to. Entertaining men who expect the world to cater to them is exhausting, and he has to frequently check himself lest he become them. With a company as successful as Oikawa Solutions funding his every move, it’s easy to lose oneself in bathtubs of diamonds and gold. Not even he can bear their entitled attitudes and expecting looks for very long. He still has no clue what, exactly, they are expecting him to do, even after years of being surrounded by them. 

Fundraisers are boring, even more so when you aren’t free to go and get plastered like half of the men here. The other half are the ones who worked to get where they are, and it shows in their wide vocabularies, their body language, even the brand of suit they wear. The ones who inherit their wealth are easier to manipulate, so Tooru typically targets them first, leeching whatever he can get from them.

He’s wrung most of them out dry multiple times over and they still haven’t noticed.

“In the words of the great Oikawa Tooru, ‘Keep frowning like that and you’ll get wrinkles’,” a soft voice says from behind him, startling him from his thoughts. 

“Oh, Suga-chan, was I really frowning?” Tooru says worriedly, face scrunching in anxiety before he finally smooths it out. Nobody likes to look at an unpleasant face.

Suga says with a tilted grin, “Only a little. I can already see the wrinkles forming. You better watch out. You’ll age yourself into an early grave at this rate.” He holds out a hand with a bitter drink in it, and Tooru shakes his head. Shrugging, Suga takes a sip for himself, nose wrinkling in momentary distaste, before downing the rest of it. Not for the first time that night, Tooru wishes he could afford to be so careless.

With a smile that’s only half-forced, Tooru says, “Is your dad here?”

“No, he was too lazy to get up and come with me. If you think _you’re_ getting wrinkles, you should see him. He has to make a public statement addressing some issues regarding that one guy he fired and whether it was over a personal bias. Really, though, the guy was just bad at his job. I had to reprimand him a lot.” Suga sighs, glancing longingly down at the empty glass. He looks like he needs to let loose soon, Tooru notes. There are bags under his eyes. Maybe the weight of being prepped to run a company is beginning to weigh on him as heavily as it does Tooru.

Tooru hopes that isn’t the case. Suga doesn’t have to worry so much about taking over his company, he’s got an amazing presence. He used to be jealous of Suga’s natural energy that draws people in, but somewhere along the line envy turned into admiration. He isn’t even sure Suga realizes when he flashes an award-winning smile at someone, but Tooru swears he can see their features soften, their shoulders loosen the slightest bit.

“So, Sawamura Daichi, huh? The son of that one really cranky old guy?” Tooru says hushedly, passing along a secret, and Suga must have gotten whiplash from how fast he looked at him. 

Tooru smirks, and Suga asks in a weak attempt at nonchalance, “What about him?”

“I noticed you hanging around him more often. He’s a very beefy man, Suga-chan, I can see his thighs from a kilometer away. I’m starting to think an artist sculpted him, he’s so muscular,” Tooru murmurs, loud enough that only Suga can hear. Tooru had hoped to catch Suga off guard, but he should have known better.

Suga huffs a laugh, exchanging his empty glass for a full one on a passing waiter’s platter. “I guess I haven’t been very sneaky after all. I thought I was clever.”

“It’s not that you weren’t sneaky, it’s just that I’m me,” Tooru says, and Suga jabs him in the side. Flinching away but not fast enough to avoid the hit, Tooru continues with a hand on his hip, “He’s a lucky man, to have someone as scary as you wrapped around his finger. You’re like an attack dog, waiting for orders. So viscous.”

The smile that crosses Suga’s face can only be described as fatal, like sharpened thorns on a blooming rosebush. “Oh, I think I have _him_ wrapped around _my_ finger,” he says, sipping from his glass delicately. Tooru sighs—honestly, he should have expected that from a Sugawara. All of them have a certain charm to them, and Tooru hates to admit that he too has fallen victim to the classic Sugawara trap of charisma. “Anyone for you?”

The phrasing is careful, so that a passerby won’t look into it, but Tooru can read between the lines. _Any men in your life?_

“No,” Tooru says, and Suga looks vaguely disappointed. 

“What about—”

“Ah, Suga-chan, I said no. I don’t have time to look after anyone but myself, plus the relationship would be… unconventional, at best,” Tooru says, eyeing the crowd of well-dressed men and women, stalking his next victim to exploit. 

“Unconventional, yes, but still fun. You never did have your teen fling, did you? That sucks for you, mine was great,” Suga winks, making everything in the sentence seem more provocative than not.

“It won’t be fun when someone snaps a picture of me and word of which way I swing gets back to my father. And stop acting like I’m some senior citizen, twenty-one isn’t that old,” Tooru grumbles, eyes finally settling upon a worthy target—swaying on his feet, an empty champagne glass in hand, and no escort to monitor him, he’s practically asking for people to take his money. 

“Tooru, you can’t keep holding yourself back out of fear of what _might_ happen.”

“I can, and I will. My father doesn’t like imperfect people, and if he finds out what I am I’d be disowned,” Tooru says, ignoring the rising lump he gets in his throat when discussing who he likes. If he had it his way, Suga would have never found out, but the damn kid has always been too perceptive and caught him making googly eyes at some random Dateko boy when they were sixteen. It’s frightening, the things Suga can deduct with such little information.

“What you are is still the same. You’re still Oikawa Tooru, heir to a company worth millions, top of your class nearly every year. Nothing changes that, you know,” Suga says, pissing Tooru off with his wisdom. It annoys him even more that he’s right.

He sends Suga a piercing smile that’s probably a little too bright, given the conversation, but if Suga notices he doesn’t mention it. This is the one topic he’d rather not discuss with anyone, his sexuality—not even with Suga, who likes men himself. It’s a source of shame for him, the only flaw he can’t seem to fix about himself. 

He’d tried sleeping with a girl once, after overhearing his father complain about a worker who ‘dressed too feminine and talked too much like a girl’. It was unpleasant, to say the least, not that there was anything wrong with whom he did it with. She was beautiful—the type of beautiful that left most breathless and wanting more after exchanging just a few words with her. Which made it all the more frustrating that he didn’t like her as anything more than a friend.

The girl—Kiyoko Shimizu—was polite about the entire situation, stating that she wouldn’t tell a soul about the ordeal. For some reason, Tooru felt inclined to trust her.

“Oikawa-san?” A flat voice asks from behind him, accompanied by a light tap on his shoulder. Tooru turns around, looking down slightly at Akaashi Keiji. 

“Oh, Akaashi, I didn’t know you would be here. Weren’t you supposed to be working on a project out near Fukurodani?” 

“I finished it early,” Akaashi says, as curt as ever. It’s hard to hold a conversation with him, but oddly enough, Tooru has developed quite a liking for him. He works hard and does his job well, and that’s all Tooru can ask for in someone who works for his company. Or almost his. It’s complicated.

“I’d expect nothing less from my favorite marketing officer, right, Suga-chan?” No response. “Suga?” 

At some point, the damned kid must have slipped off. That fake smile must have scared him away—it was too shiny, too plastic. Tooru tries to salvage himself from looking like a complete idiot (in vain) and says, “Well, ignoring that, what have you—”

He’s cut off by a rough shove to his back, sending him stumbling a few steps, the floor nearing his face before Akaashi grabs him beneath the shoulders and saves him from sprawling on the marble floor. The man’s strangely strong for someone so lean, and he’s hoisted back to his feet with what seems like no effort.

Tooru mutters a quick “Thank you”, face flushed in embarrassment, before whirling on whoever had the audacity to cause him a near-death experience. 

The culprit is tall, surprisingly taller than Tooru, his hair gravity-defying and eyes wide in… Shock? Terror? He _should_ fear Tooru—he could ruin his life a million times over in a million different ways. It tempts Tooru to verbally harass his assailant right then and there, possibly make him cry on his knees and apologize, but there’s a kicked puppy feel to him that is almost pitiful to look at. He shows mercy, for once.

“Bokuto-san, I’ve told you before to watch where you’re going. Oikawa-san, I apologize for him,” Akaashi sighs from behind him, and Tooru takes a step back to glance between the two of them. The assailant—Bokuto—shuffles closer to Akaashi, almost hiding behind him despite being the taller of the two. They obviously know each other, Tooru notices.

“Yeah, man, I’m really sorry. I tripped over these shoes, they’re too big and bulky! I don’t know _how_ Akaashi wears these things to work every day. He really is amazing! Anyway, sorry again,” Bokuto says, emotions as varying as the colors of the rainbow. It’s confusing, how he can switch from apologetic to admiring to ashamed so quickly.

Obviously, Bokuto doesn’t work for the company—nobody at Oikawa Solutions is allowed to behave so foolishly, it tarnishes the company name. Forcing his irritation away for the moment, Tooru grits out, “It’s alright, it happens.” No, it doesn’t. Not to Tooru, at least. “Are you Akaashi’s plus one?”

“Yes,” Akaashi answers for Bokuto. “This is my boyfriend, Bokuto Koutarou.” 

Boyfriend. Did he just say boyfriend? Here, with so many people around? 

It takes everything Tooru has to keep his face from giving away his internal panic. Does Akaashi even care about his job? He has to, if he’s already made it to Chief Marketing Officer at such a young age—he’s not much older than Tooru himself, so why would he risk his job with such a bold move? Surely he understands the consequences if this gets back—

“Well, Bo-kun, it’s nice to meet you! Don’t worry about running me over—” He had to get a _little_ dig in. He did almost fall to his death thanks to the man. “—it’s been forgotten. I didn’t know the great Akaashi was dating, he neglected to tell me that.” Akaashi isn’t obligated to tell Tooru anything. It’s actually wiser to _not_ tell Tooru anything, given he’s able to fire almost anyone in the company.

Still, for some reason, he’s upset that he didn’t know there was someone… who likes who Tooru likes, that holds such an influential position. It both terrifies him and enthralls him.

Tooru extends a hand to Bokuto, and the latter shakes it eagerly, grip crushing. Once again, obviously not a businessman. “It’s nice to meet you, uh,” Bokuto pauses, and Akaashi whispers something to him. “Oikawa! Hey, it’s kind of cool that your name is in the company name too! That’s a crazy coincidence.”

Akaashi simultaneously looks like he wants to kill and kiss Bokuto, and it’s the most emotion Tooru has ever seen from him. But there’s something beneath what lies on the surface, Tooru can tell. It’s in the slight smile on Akaashi’s lips, the way his eyes seem alight from the inside out. How he keeps his gaze on Bokuto until he has to pull it away, how he stares at the stray hair falling across Bokuto’s forehead. 

Is it love? Is that what it is? Akaashi has to be in love with Bokuto to look at him like that. But why? That can only be used against you in this business, especially when it’s…. Two males. 

It’s strange, though. Tooru finds himself rooting for them, the underdogs. Maybe love like theirs can exist in the world Tooru lives in.

He smiles, genuinely. “It is kind of cool, Bo-kun. Whenever I introduce myself, people tend to recognize who I am right away and compliment me. I don’t blame them, I’d compliment myself too. I like it a lot, it’s a pleasant feeling.”

“Oikawa-san, I’m glad you and Bokuto-san get along so well, but I think someone is trying to get your attention from over there. He’s walking over here quite briskly,” Akaashi interrupts, glancing at someone in the crowd. Tooru squints in the direction of Akaashi’s gaze, then immediately turns away and ducks his head.

“How the hell did he find me again?” Tooru mutters angrily, looking around for an escape route and upon finding none, scrambling behind Bokuto. The man’s as tall and thick as a tree. He should be a decent hiding spot. Unfortunately, Bokuto’s a little slow on the uptake.

“Oikawa, what are you doing? That guy’s looking for you, I think. Wow, he’s, like, as tall as me! Hey, are you looking for Oikawa? He’s right here—hmph!”

Tooru clamps a hand over Bokuto’s mouth, arm wrapping around the latter’s head to get a good angle. “Bo-kun,” he hisses, “now is not the time to be running your mouth. Save that for Akaashi a little later, alright?”

Bokuto nods, and surprisingly enough, Akaashi doesn’t say a single thing about Tooru nearly strangling his boyfriend. If anything, he just seems exhausted. Reluctantly, he retracts his hand and returns to hiding behind Bokuto and hoping that _he_ hadn’t seen him.

“Oikawa Tooru.” 

The deep voice is straight from his nightmares, and he almost collapses right then in there. He certainly wants to.

Instead, he straightens, aware of how idiotic he must look, hunched over behind Bokuto like a child throwing a tantrum. He steps out from behind the bulky man, straightening his tie and looking up at the worst person he’s ever had the displeasure of speaking to.

“Yahoo, Ushiwaka-chan. I didn’t know you would be here.”

“We saw each other earlier at the buffet.”

Internally, Tooru cringes. He was hoping Ushijima would have forgotten that, but that was naïve of him. Ushijima forgets nothing relating to the Oikawas. “Ah, yes, you’re right. I didn’t forget, I just was hoping you’d get the memo and run back to your dad.”

“I wanted to speak with you,” Ushijima says sternly, completely ignoring Tooru, and he wishes a crack would open up in the ground and swallow him whole. That would probably be more pleasant than a conversation with Ushijima.

“Oh? And to what do I owe the pleasure of speaking to you?” The venom in his voice is thinly veiled, and even Akaashi sends him a skeptical look. With a shallow nod to Tooru, Akaashi tugs on Bokuto’s sleeve, pulling him away despite his protests from whatever shitshow was about to unfold. Smart man. There’s a reason he’s Chief of Marketing, his social-reading skills are unmatched.

“Your company is doing well. I hear you might be taking over soon.”

As dry as ever. He needs to learn how to hold a conversation, it’s a basic skill anyone can learn, and given that he’s a CEO’s son, Ushijima should know that. Still, Tooru must speak with him—he’s a powerful man. “Yes, I’ve heard the same. The plan is to replace my father in a year, maybe less. Probably less, since it’s me. I heard Embassy Shiratorizawa’s stocks took a hit? What a shame.”

“We have since gotten them back up, but that is not what I came to discuss with you.” Oh, Tooru knows damn well what’s coming next. He’s had to hear it every time their companies attend events together.

“If you’re about to say what I think you’re going to say, Ushiwaka-chan, I suggest you go to your room and—”

“If you come work for me, I’ll pay you more. You won’t have to take on the same workload as a CEO and you will be well provided for.”

And there it is. The classic, “Work for me instead” line. What does he think will happen—Tooru will drop everything and run to Shiratorizawa instead? For someone smart enough to keep up with Tooru in academics, he really is an idiot.

A waiter with an empty tray passes them by, and Tooru taps her shoulder. She turns to him with a dazzling smile, and Tooru gives her one of his most dazzling grins back. “Can you get me a glass of red wine, please?” 

“May I have one as well?” Ushijima asks, and the lady nods. Tooru shoots him a glare just for talking. 

The waitress gives Tooru one last, longing look, her cheeks slightly pink, before hurrying off into the crowd.

“I was going to give you my glass after slipping poison in it,” Tooru says, and as usual, Ushijima remains unphased. It’s become a game of sorts to Tooru—seeing if he can make Ushijima react to anything. So far, he’s been unsuccessful.

“You know my word is true. Oikawa Solutions is in a position where selling the company would be more beneficial than not, and Shiratorizawa will buy whatever price you put up. You don’t have to go down with your business.”

There’s a kernel of truth to Ushijima’s words. The company has been in a slump for months, and they are losing money. Fast. Not the Oikawas, of course—they remained as rich as ever. Rather, the business itself was failing. Funds had to be cut, people had to be fired, and they even had to shut down a few of their international locations in the states.

But, while Tooru may be self-centered, he isn’t disloyal. Shiratorizawa’s sudden rise to the top of the business world is a major contributor to Oikawa Solutions’ failures, and why would Tooru leave to go to a rival company?

Plus, Ushijima has a talent for pushing all of Tooru’s wrong buttons.

It’s an effort to keep himself from murdering Ushijima right there, in front of over a hundred influential people plus nosey paparazzi. Instead, Tooru says, “You know my answer already, so why ask?”

Ushijima frowns—er, frowns more than he was before. “No, I don’t know your answer. You change your mind about things frequently, and this is no different.”

Hearing Ushijima talk about Tooru like he actually knows him sends a fresh flare of irritation through him, lighting him aflame. Once again, murder pops into his mind. “Surprisingly enough, I haven’t changed my mind in the week that’s passed since we saw each other at that gala. I won’t change my mind in a week, or a month, or a year, so quit asking.”

Stone-faced, Ushijima’s only tell of disappointment is in the glint in his eyes. But it looks an awful lot like pity, too. 

He can’t stand to look at it any longer. “Oh, do you hear that, Ushiwaka-chan? I think someone’s calling me,” Tooru chirps, and Ushijima scans the crowd.

“I do not hear or see anyone calling for you.”

“Well, you might have to get your ears checked, because I hear it loud and clear,” Tooru says, turning the opposite way and disappearing into the crowd before Ushijima can say another stupid word from his stupid mouth. He’s unbearable.

It’s about time Tooru gets back to work, anyway. He’s been chatting for long enough, and there’s still rich people he needs to suck dry before the night is over. Their bank accounts, of course, not the men themselves—most of them look like they’re well past their expiration dates. 

The fundraiser should be officially ending soon, but the drunken men will linger for longer than the rest. He’ll make his move then, so he can afford to take a quick break now from the stuffy room. When he returns, he’ll have to tell that waitress he ordered from earlier to give the wine to someone else. Truthfully, he never planned on drinking it, he just needed to talk to someone other than Ushijima to keep him sane.

Careful to not draw attention, Tooru slips out a heavy door just before it slams shut, following just behind someone else. The relief is instant from leaving the heat of the premier room, a blast of chilly air from the A.C. hitting him point black in the face along with the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread from the kitchen.

A sigh escapes him, and he ducks into a nearby nook to stay out of sight. He can’t afford people to see him in any state of fatigue or distress—perfect children don’t feel fatigue or get distressed, therefore he shouldn’t either. 

Only an hour or so left, then he can go back to his penthouse in Chiyoda and pass out amongst his star-patterned sheets and wake up to his butler’s gentle beckons and the smell of breakfast cooking. He finds his eyes drooping with a sudden exhaustion, and the end of the night can’t come soon enough.

“You’re one of my best workers, Akaashi-san, but I can’t let something like this slide.” 

The familiar rumble of his father’s voice immediately has Tooru scrambling to fix himself, patting down his hair and tugging nervously on his sleek jacket, but then he processes the sentence. His father can’t be reprimanding Akaashi Keiji, right? Akaashi is a model executive—hard-working, brilliant, and analytical.

But sure enough, Akaashi’s voice answers, “Sir, with all due respect, I have done nothing wrong.”

“You know _exactly_ what you did wrong. You knew it the moment you brought him in here, but you still did it with absolutely no regard for the company.” The poison dripping from each word is enough to have Tooru wishing he could flee, but something grounds him in place—a feeling he’s never experienced with his father.

He peeks around the corner of the nook, and the back of Bokuto and Akaashi’s heads are visible just a few feet away. His father’s puckered face glares at the two with beady, cold eyes. It’s a miracle he doesn’t notice Tooru in his line of sight, but he’s too wrapped up in Akaashi to notice anything else, it seems.

When Akaashi speaks, there’s an underlying nastiness to it, like the words themselves have a foul taste to them. “I have done nothing wrong, Oikawa-buchou. I refuse to apologize for something I do not regret doing, and bringing Bokuto-san to this fundraiser is not one of those things.”

His father’s face contorts for a split second, ugly with rage, but it’s gone just as quick as it was there. Akaashi should be running away by now—Tooru would have if he was on the receiving end of this. What the hell is even going on? 

“I have no qualms with you bringing a plus one to our fundraiser. What I have an issue with is how you introduced him to people. Frankly, it’s disgusting how selfishly you acted. Did you ever think of our reputation, and how introducing someone as your _boyfriend_ would look for us?”

Oh. 

It’s about the nature of Bokuto and Akaashi’s relationship, then.

It shouldn’t hurt Tooru—he’s known for a while what his father’s opinions on homosexuality are. It’s the entire reason he keeps that part of himself locked away for nobody to see, especially the public, out of fear of backlash regarding both his family name and business image. He knows why he’s supposed to keep it hidden.

But it still hurts, punching his breath from his lungs, and he wishes (not for the first time that night) that he was in his penthouse so he could curl up into a ball where nobody could see him and scream. Scream so loud that the windows rattle, scream so long that his throat is hoarse the next morning. Scream, scream, scream.

“I will give you two options. You are a valued worker of Oikawa Solutions, so keep in mind that I wouldn’t give just anyone this choice. You can correct your mistake, find all the people you introduced this man here as your _boyfriend_ to and reintroduce him as a friend, or you can leave. Leave the company, your job, all of it.”

Tooru wishes he could move, but his legs refuse to work. Even if he could move, what would he do? His brain tells him to listen to his father, to do what he’s always done, but his heart disagrees, crying for Akaashi and Bokuto.

“Wait, Akaashi, are you getting fired?” Bokuto says, as late on the pickup as ever. He sounds frantic, panicked for his boyfriend, voice unsure and so different from the Bokuto that collided with Tooru.

“Yes, I guess I am. Come on, Koutarou, we’re leaving,” Akaashi says coldly, and that’s what jolts Tooru into finally taking action.

Tooru’s mask is shattered and discarded when he turns the corner from the nook he was hiding in. He barely processes the surprise on his father’s face before he says tensely, “Father, you can’t fire Akaashi.”

Akaashi and Bokuto both turn to face him with varying expressions—Bokuto with a strange combination of distress and hope, Akaashi with a devastated surprise, mouth a small ‘o’. 

His father frowns, looking at Tooru skeptically. He probably thinks Tooru has an ulterior motive for keeping Akaashi and is trying to determine what purpose Akaashi staying could serve his son. He must have found none, because he asks, “Why not? It seems you heard enough of the conversation to be aware of what’s happening, but I will reiterate it—we can’t have gay employees. You of all people, Tooru, know we tolerate nothing that would leave a stain on our reputation, and if it got out that our Chief of Marketing is gay, we could lose business from consumers who don’t support his choice.”

It’s the word ‘choice’ that sends Tooru careening over the edge.

“I hardly think that who Akaashi is interested in is a choice.” 

Looking back on the encounter years from now, Tooru would probably laugh at the shock that crossed his father’s face. But with it unfolding in front of him, the momentary surprise only spurs Tooru to continue his tirade. 

“Akaashi has been nothing but a brilliant worker, and firing him over who he introduces Bokuto as is ridiculous!” Once he starts, he can’t stop. “Something this venial won’t cause our business harm, so who cares? Are you sure that this is about the company’s reputation, or do you just not like it? Because I think this has everything to do with your personal beliefs, _Oikawa-buchou_.” 

He spits the title like an insult, years of pent-up frustration released for Akaashi’s defense. He’s hyper aware of his surroundings in the silence that follows the outburst—how silent it seems despite the constant chatter floating in from the premier room door and the clattering plates from the kitchen. What’s most loud, though, is his breathing, loud and labored in his ears intermingled the underlying beating of his heart. 

Then, all hell breaks loose.

“Tooru,” his father says, face and voice the epitome of calm before the storm, “I will overlook your disrespect, just this once, because you’ve done a fine job of entertaining tonight, but know that I will not overlook it again. Akaashi will be fired tonight, and you have no say.”

“I don’t want my ‘disrespect’—” he uses air quotes, “—to be overlooked, I want it to be heard. If you fire Akaashi, I’ll walk out of that door right now and you can take over my job of scamming piss-drunk idiots out of their inherited money, because I sure as hell don’t enjoy it!”

“Keep your voice down!” Tooru’s father says hushedly, looking around to see if anyone overheard them. Upon finding no one, he turns back to Tooru with nothing but irritation, like he’s dealing with a child throwing a tantrum. “You listen to me, and you listen well. I will fire Akaashi because he made the decision to introduce his boyfriend to powerful people without my consent, people whose money we need to save us from the decline we’re currently in. Personal or not, I will not risk my business over something as venial as this, and if you think otherwise, then maybe you aren’t ready to take over the company.”

Tooru can hardly believe that this is actually happening. He faintly processes Akaashi shuffling closer to Bokuto, multiple passersby stopping and staring. “If I’m not ready to take over the company, good luck finding someone better than me, because there’s nobody who knows it like I do, not even you.”

“That Kageyama kid gets better results than you, Tooru, and he’s younger. You could learn a thing or two from him, because I know that he doesn’t talk back to both his father and _buchou_ like this.”

That’s the snapping point for Tooru. “Get him to finish my work tonight, then, because I’m leaving.”

With that, he turns on his heel, storming away from the growing crowd and toward the exit to the Tokyo streets.

When he passes the entrance to the premier room, he catches a glimpse of Ushijima carrying two glasses of red wine.

  
  


-X-

  
  


The bar is dimly lit in pink and blue lights—lighting that Tooru is ninety-nine percent sure makes him look like a greek god, all chiseled jawlines and sparkling eyes. Truly, a model is sitting at the counter.

So why hasn’t anyone approached him yet? It’s something he’s getting sick of asking himself.

He throws back his eighth shot of the night, ignoring how the vodka burns its way down his throat, eventually warming his stomach. It’s the first time he’s gotten more than tipsy in a while, possibly years. He knows he should lessen up on the booze, but all he wants is to forget Bokuto and Akaashi and his father and everything that happened prior to an hour ago and downing shots one after another proves effective.

But it’s so hard to forget the bright smile of Bokuto when Tooru first met him compared to how solemn he was when Tooru intervened. If that’s really what his father thought of men who like men, then he’s in for a real surprise. Or not. Hopefully not. Tooru would rather his father never find out about his true nature.

“Hey, you there?” A hand waves in front of his face, effectively bringing him back to the bar and saving him from falling hopelessly into bad memories. 

Someone sat next to him when he was lost in his thoughts, staring at a wall like an idiot, and his face heats up. He plasters on a smile to hide his embarrassment. “Yes, I’m here. All here. Completely.”

He’s aware how dumb he sounds, but the words slip past his lips before he can double-check them like he normally does. It’s a strange feeling, being drunk—he knows that he wouldn’t normally say such idiotic things, but they feel so right coming off his tongue, so he allows it to happen.

The other man’s face is flushed too—a tell that Tooru isn’t the only one who has had too much to drink. When the shots catch up with him, Tooru isn’t sure he’ll even be able to walk. Good thing this man is handsome, Tooru can possibly take a taxi home with him. 

“You don’t sound here, or look here.”

Tooru pouts. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The man sighs, running a hand through his hair. “How many shots in are you?”

“Uh, eight. Wait, that’s not fair, I know you’ve done shots too!”

Scowling, the man says, “How can you tell?”

Tooru chirps, “Call it intuition.” It’s instinct, at this point, to tell if someone is drunk or not from countless events he’s attended plus a little bit of observation, but he chooses to not say that. “Now give it up, how many?”

The man pauses, then mutters, “Eight.” 

Tooru notes that the man is shorter than him, if only by a little, but it’s enough for Tooru to have to tilt his chin downwards. With a sly grin he says, “For someone of your height, I’m surprised you’re not passed out on the ground.”

The man’s frown is a slice across his face, but it’s hard to miss the glint of amusement in his eyes. He looks at Tooru sidelong. “I’m Iwaizumi Hajime.”

Now it’s Tooru’s turn to frown, the alcohol making it harder and harder to hold onto the cheerful, clever son facade he never drops (except, evidently, now). “Iwaizumi? I don’t like it.” Iwaizumi's jaw falls open, and Tooru takes advantage of the silence of him gawking to continue, “Too long—I feel like a poet saying it—Iw-ai-zu-mi. Wait, I’m thinking… Iwa-chan? Yeah, that’s much better. It fits a big, scary man like you _and_ it’s shorter. Iwa-chan!”

Iwaizumi glares at him, and it’s strangely refreshing. Nobody Tooru knows has the gall to glare at him, the heir to a wealth as enormous as it is, and it’s not like he has many friends who speak so freely to him. 

Even with the alcohol dimming his senses, Tooru has enough awareness to not give his entire name—if someone recognizes him, disaster could come in varying forms, from pestering paparazzi to being blackmailed into submission by a rival company. “I’m Oikawa. It’s a pleasure to meet Iwa-chan.”

If Iwaizumi notices that Tooru neglected to use his first name, he doesn’t comment on it. “Well, Oikawa, most people don’t insult others within two minutes of meeting them unless they have a shitty personality.”

Tooru chooses to ignore Iwaizumi’s insult to him in favor of throwing in a cheesy line that only works when both people are plastered. “Well, I’m not most people, Iwa-chan.”

A dark looks flits over Iwaizumi’s features, lingering in the devious half-smile that follows. “No, you’re not,” Iwaizumi says, voice gruff with untamed emotion. Tooru takes the opportunity of a cease in conversation to look Iwaizumi over in a way that’s more than a hurried analysis.

He’s attractive, there’s no use dancing around the truth. Sleeves of intricate designs tattoo his arms, ranging from flowers to spiders, all shaded in strictly black and white. A punk vibe looks to be what he’s going for, if the sleeveless leather jacket and pierced ears say anything. Truthfully, he looks like a delinquent—someone Tooru should never be seen with.

But there’s a pull to him—it’s like he’s the sun, and Tooru is an asteroid caught in his orbit. It’s only so long until Tooru hurtles into him at full speed and, inevitably, burns up on his journey.

This entire night has been a terrible idea, Iwaizumi being the worst of it.

Still, Tooru traces a hand over an ornate design of a maple leaf on Iwaizumi’s bicep, finger running over the delicate lines with nothing but calculated elegance and allure. Iwaizumi doesn’t tense, doesn’t shift, the only tell of how he’s affected is the hand that slides onto Tooru’s lower back, the warmth of the palm felt even through the white dress shirt he wears. 

It’s thrilling to do something you know you’re not supposed to, he discovers, when Iwaizumi licks his lips to gather excess alcohol.

“Why don’t we get out of here?” Iwaizumi asks, voice leaving no room for misconceptions, and God if that wasn’t the question Tooru has been waiting for.

“I know a place,” Tooru murmurs, retracting his hand from Iwaizumi’s arm and standing. The wave of dizziness that comes with rising is nothing to be laughed at, but thankfully he manages to not make a fool of himself and stands firm with minimal sway.

Iwaizumi’s hand, surprisingly, lingers on his waist even when they walk through the bar, only slipping from him when they part to enter the taxi. 

After giving the address to his penthouse in Chiyoda to the driver, it’s a test of his will not to jump Iwaizumi right there, especially when he keeps looking at Tooru like he’s his next meal. 

There’s some things he should probably tell Iwaizumi soon, like the fact that this is his first time with a boy, but should he really break the mood for both of them? It’s clear they both want this, and Tooru thinks that sex is simple enough. Stick the penis in the hole, right?

The taxi parks in front of the familiar, modern apartment building lined with neatly-trimmed shrubs and flowers illuminated by lanterns spread evenly among the mulch. It’s easy to overlook the beauty of his home, especially in a drunken haze, but when Tooru checks his shoulder he finds Iwaizumi gaping at the grandeur of it all.

“Uh, do you live here?” Iwaizumi asks, eyes slowly making their way back to Tooru. It’s getting harder and harder to think straight, but Tooru can see the uncertainty in Iwaizumi—how he shifts his weight from foot to foot, narrowed eyes darting to-and-fro like he’s unsure of where to look.

It’s been a while since anybody has admired the wonder of his lifestyle, and Tooru smiles slyly, placing a hand on a rising pillar for support. “Yup, all mine. Just wait, there’s more. Don’t you wanna hurry to my place, Iwa-chan?”

Iwaizumi glances back at Tooru, and a smirk plays on his lips. It’s effect is absolutely devastating on Tooru. “Lead the way.”

The lobby only has a few people here and there at this hour, all of them finely dressed and doused in sickly perfume or cologne, so navigating to the elevator with a punk trailing behind him isn’t as nerve-wracking as it could have been. 

Tooru presses the ‘up’ button once, then twice, the wait for the elevator feeling like forever. With a _bing_ the doors open and Tooru steps inside, Iwaizumi close behind. There’s a polished man sitting on a stool inside, one that Tooru recognizes.

He manages to act sober enough to say, “Yahoo, Kindai-chan. Top floor, please.”

Kindaichi nods, and Iwaizumi whispers, “Someone pushes your buttons for you? I knew you were lazy, but this is a whole new level.”

Tooru frowns and mutters back, “How’d you know I’m lazy? I am not!” 

“Sure, I bet you have a butler too. Do you even know how to do your own laundry?”

When the elevator doors part again, Tooru tugs Iwaizumi’s arm to walk out. “Bye bye, Kindai-chan.” 

“Is the entire floor your apartment?” Iwaizumi asks, somehow still managing to focus on anything other than Tooru. He’s wide-eyed, stumbling out of the elevator in a trance, enamored with the geometric design of the penthouse.

“Yup. Watari-kun!” Tooru shouts, stumbling over to Iwaizumi and looping his arms around his neck, chin resting on his shoulder. Watari pops out from the bathroom behind Iwaizumi holding a stack of towels, face paling ever so slightly when he beholds the scene in front of him

“Yes, Oikawa-san?” 

Iwaizumi nearly drops Tooru in his hurry to find the unfamiliar voice. Tooru chirps, “I’m ending your shift early, can you find somewhere else to be for tonight?”

Watari nods resolutely, scurrying back into the bathroom to set the towels down and practically running to the elevator, occasionally tossing nervous glances back at him and Iwaizumi while he waits for it to arrive. “You actually have a butler,” Iwaizumi murmurs, more to himself than anyone else.

Tooru hums in confirmation, kissing his way up Iwaizumi’s neck and sucking the skin beneath his jaw between his teeth, all while watching Watari squirm beneath his gaze like a caged animal, shoulders tense and hand fidgeting with the tailcoat of his uniform. 

Iwaizumi’s breath hitches when Tooru slips a hand beneath his shirt to feel the rippling muscle beneath, and Tooru can tell that Iwaizumi is holding back for Watari’s sake—such a gentleman. It feels like forever that Tooru touches Iwaizumi with lazy, teasing circles, trying to make his self-control diminish enough that he snaps and, hopefully, pins Tooru against a wall or something like that. That sounds nice.

_Bing_. 

Watari steps into the elevator with a sigh of relief, and the moment the doors close, it’s like a switch is flipped.

“You asshole, torturing that poor kid,” Iwaizumi growls, grabbing Tooru’s hips and steering them to a leather couch in front of a vast window spanning from one wall to the other. Their lips crash together just as Tooru not-so-gracefully falls onto the couch, Iwaizumi’s hands moving from his waist to the back of his neck. 

Tooru buries his fingers into Iwaizumi’s hair when Iwaizumi’s tongue slides past his lips, inhaling sharply through his nose as Iwaizumi tugs at his shirt. Iwaizumi pulls back just enough to hurriedly unbutton Tooru’s dress shirt, fingers slipping in their race to the final button. Tooru arches his back so that the shirt can be tugged off his chest and discarded to the side like it didn’t cost over 20,000 yen.

Unwilling to be outdone, Tooru maneuvers the vest Iwaizumi wears through his arms and basically tears the white undershirt over his head, mussing Iwaizumi’s hair in a way that shouldn’t look so fucking _hot_ but it does because Iwaizumi is the epitome of sex appeal. Their lips meet again, not organized in the slightest and more reminiscent of two mouths clashing messily rather than an actual kiss.

The feeling of a calloused palm snaking beneath his fitted pants, separating cloth from skin, has him gasping, head turning to the side and breaking the kiss. Iwaizumi pays it no mind, occupying himself by pulling Tooru’s pants from his legs, leaving Tooru feeling awfully exposed.

A thought crosses his mind, and he shoves Iwaizumi back 

Looking concerned, Iwaizumi leans back on his heels. “Everything okay?”

“Let’s move to the bedroom,” Tooru says, but what he really wants to say is ‘No way my first time with a guy will be on a couch in front of a massive window for all of Tokyo to see’. Holy fuck, his first time with a guy. There’s no way Iwaizumi, the man who oozes domineering energy, will be the one receiving, so that leaves Tooru to take it.

“Are you sure you’re fine? You look kind of nervous,” Iwaizumi asks, and Tooru shakes his head.

“Iwa-chan, I’m tired of talking so much. Let’s hurry up already, I’m getting bored down there,” Tooru says, hoping to distract both Iwaizumi and himself from the knot in his gut. He wants to do this with Iwaizumi—it’s like a fuck you to his father and an overall pleasurable experience all-in-one. Still, he’s allowed to feel a little _unsure_ of himself.

Iwaizumi moves off the couch, pulling Tooru to his feet and drawing him close enough that their chests are pressed against one another, mouths connecting once more. It feels so, so much better than when he did it with Kiyoko, and they haven’t even started the main event yet.

Getting to the bedroom is a test of Tooru’s sanity, the slow pace they set while they feel up and down each other’s backs just isn’t fast enough, but Tooru can’t bring himself to pull away long enough to point out the room.

It’s large, the entrance a simple arch with no definitive doorway, which is convenient given the way the two nearly fall over their own feet before Tooru is gently pushed on the fluffy grey comforter on his bed. It’s with lidded eyes that he watches Iwaizumi strip himself bare, admiring once more the beautiful whorls of ink that aren’t just on his hands but his back as well, an admission-free art gallery for Tooru to revere. 

Tooru’s watched enough porn to know how to suck a dick, and he pounces on Iwaizumi the moment he gets close enough to the bed. He wraps his mouth around the tip, and the reaction is instant.

Iwaizumi groans deeply, burying a hand deep in Tooru’s hair and holding him firm. It spurs Tooru further, taking him further into his throat and using his tongue to draw on line on the bottom of the length, slurping when he makes his way back to the tip again with hollow cheeks.

He must be doing something right, because Iwaizumi’s hips jerk, sending his cock back into Tooru’s mouth, and he feels his throat tighten in the beginnings of a gag because _shit_ this is harder than it looks, but Iwaizumi mutters an apology and pulls back. Tooru takes the lead again, feigning confidence in his skills enough to get by.

Down, up, down up. Tooru can feel a mix of saliva and precum dripping from his lips, and he’s making obscene noises that would leave him feeling disgusted in any other situation. Iwaizumi’s voice is constant, whispers of how good Tooru is, how amazing he is—a nice change from how rude he was prior. It drives him to touch his own cock, freeing it from his boxers and pumping it in time with the bob of his head, tongue flicking the slit slowly, at his own pace.

He starts to climb to his climax using Iwaizumi’s words, letting Iwaizumi’s compliments and noises send him spiraling into another realm of pleasure. 

Iwaizumi grabs his wrist and pulls it away from his cock, and Tooru whimpers, mouth still around the girth of him. 

“Not yet, Oikawa,” he rumbles, using his grip on Tooru’s hair to pull him off his cock, trailing precome in a string connecting them. Iwaizumi releases Tooru to bend over to pick off his pants from the ground, burying a hand in one of the pockets and removing a mini bottle of… lube? That has to be the lube, right?

Iwaizumi says, “Lay on your back,” and damn, if Iwaizumi asked him to jump off a building with that gravelly, ruined voice he would listen in a heartbeat. It’s embarrassing, honestly, how fast he flips onto his back, like a well-trained dog.

What’s even more embarrassing is the startled squawk he makes when Iwaizumi grabs beneath his knees and hauls him to the edge of the bed, ass in front of Iwaizumi’s erection. He gestures for Tooru to lift his hips and shimmies his underwear off, leaving the both free of clothes, and the relief of his freed cock is enough to have him inhaling sharply.

“You’re sure you're okay?” Iwaizumi’s voice drags him from an arousal-induced daze, and he tilts his head to look up at Iwaizumi’s face, pinched in concern.

“Yeah, yeah, of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” Tooru says, eyeing how Iwaizumi drizzles lube on his fingers then rubs his hands together.

“All night, you’ve been… Nevermind. I’m tired of talking to you,” Iwaizumi says, and Tooru glares at him.

“Rude, Iwa-chan—ah!” A finger slips into him, and it surprises Tooru how much it burns, and tears instantly prick at his eyes, much to his horror. 

“Relax, Oikawa. I know, I know, just bear with me here. You’re doing great, you look so gorgeous...” Iwaizumi’s words of encouragement have Tooru throwing his head back against the mattress, forcing his muscles to relax rather than tense up. It becomes a lot more bearable then, and when Iwaizumi slips in a second finger, the burn isn’t nearly as bad—it’s more uncomfortable, than anything, like something is out of place.

Is this really all that sex is? Tooru expected mind-numbing pleasure, something to take his mind away from Bokuto and Akaashi, not to just lay there and act like he enjoys it.

Iwaizumi’s fingers move in and out, picking up a rhythm, until suddenly they curl and—

Tooru’s back arches, hands fisting the sheets as his veins are set on fire with an unfamiliar feeling of absolute bliss that ignites his entire body. His chest heaves, gulping in air like it’s his first time breathing, which it might as well have been with all the new experiences Iwaizumi is providing him with tonight.

“Iwa-chan, please.” It’s hard to speak, to form words, when Iwaizumi slips the third finger in and immediately finds that spot again, and he doesn’t even realize he’s arching his back until Iwaizumi’s free hand pins his hips down. He doesn’t even remember why he’s saying please, what he’s asking for.

“Please what? What happened to that shitty personality? You don’t seem like one to beg,” Iwaizumi drawls, plunging in and out of him, spreading him wide open. Tooru forces his chin to his chest to steal a look at Iwaizumi, and a pair of darkened, half-lidded eyes greet him, much closer to his face than he expected.

“Oikawa, I asked you a question. Please what?” That hesitation from earlier, the worry he looked at Tooru with when asking if he was okay, is replaced with a deadly hunger. It’s a welcome change, because this Iwaizumi wrecks Tooru with just a few words and the shift of his fingers.

“Please, please, Iwa-chan.” 

“Please what?” Iwaizumi asks, and Tooru isn’t sure if he can answer over the dull roar of the blood rushing through his veins. He must have said something, though, because Iwaizumi pulls his fingers out of him, leaving him with an aching feeling of emptiness.

This is it. This is where it happens. He’s about to lose his virginity to a stranger he met less than an hour ago, holy shit. No time to panic, Tooru, now is not a good time.

A hand brushes his bangs, slick with sweat, from his forehead, the touch calm before a storm. Tooru had closed his eyes at some point in his panic, and he cracks them open to see Iwaizumi hovering over him, hand still tangled in his hair.

“You make such pretty faces,” Iwaizumi says, breath tickling his face, and Tooru’s eyes widen in surprise. Iwaizumi chooses that moment to slowly, carefully, push into Tooru.

There’s the sensation of him being stretched wider than he thought possible, and it’s not comfortable at all, almost bordering on painful.

It takes everything in Tooru not to make a noise of discomfort, and he squeezes his eyes shut. Fuck, why does it hurt? Should it hurt? Is there something wrong with him? He puts his hand to his mouth, biting down on his thumb to stifle anything embarrassing that might slip past his lips.

Iwaizumi stills when he’s buried inside Tooru, then pries Tooru’s hand away from his mouth. “Don’t hurt yourself,” Iwaizumi says, words laced with a groan, and Tooru realizes he had left an imprint of his teeth on his skin.

Before he can reply, a finger slips into his mouth, and it’s an instinct to suck on it. It provides a distraction while he adjusts to the thick length of Iwaizumi inside him, and he bobs his head up and down the finger, tongue swirling around it languidly, fantasizing that it’s Iwaizumi’s cock instead. 

The pain from Iwaizumi initially sliding into him dissipates into the strange feeling of something where it’s not supposed to be now, and Tooru figures that’s good enough to start picking up the pace. He pulls off the finger, a line of saliva connecting him to the lost finger. “Iwa-chan, I’m getting impatient. Are you just going to stand there, or do something?”

And oh, does Iwa-chan do something.

He starts slow, shifting inside of Tooru rather than actually thrusting in and out, but even the small movement begins to loosen him more thoroughly than fingers ever could. 

“Fuck, Oikawa, you’re so tight,” Iwaizumi says throatily, and Tooru actually _moans_ when Iwaizumi draws his hips back and snaps his hips, burying into him hard, the sound of flesh slapping so loud in the quiet of his apartment, coupled only with heavy breathing and his own heartbeat. 

The spot before—the one that Iwaizumi found when he was fingering him open—is rammed into, satisfied in a way Tooru didn’t realize he was craving until it has his back bending, lips parted in a breathy ‘Oh’. He vaguely registers a face burying into his neck, sucking and nipping at the skin there, and another roll of Iwaizumi’s hips causes him to wrap his arms around Iwaizumi’s firm back.

“Iwa-chan, that was good, that was so good,” Tooru manages, and he gasps when Iwaizumi hits deep again. “Do it again.”

“There’s the brat from earlier,” Iwaizumi grunts, and then he’s moving faster. Tooru feels both like he’s floating and grounded at the same time, drowning in too many feelings, too many emotions, to distinguish any single one. He has enough awareness to tell that they all give him a strong sense of euphoria, but nothing further than that.

It’s hard to think straight when Iwaizumi is saying things like, “You like that, huh? I loved it when you begged.”

Tooru’s climbing rapidly towards his climax already, each thrust hitting that spot that leaves him reeling and breathless, fingers white-knuckling the comforter. His legs are trembling, and Iwaizumi is relentless, never letting up, mouth occupied with the corner of his jaw.

Iwaizumi pulls back from Tooru’s face, skin flushed and a thin sheen of sweat lining him. It’s between panting breaths and deep rolls of his hips that Iwaizumi says, voice rough, “Come for me, Oikawa.”

Tooru’s mentioned before that he would jump off a building if Iwaizumi asked him to, right?

He can’t go against what Iwaizumi says, and all defiance seeps out of him as he climaxes, come smearing beneath where Iwaizumi and his skin presses together in a sticky mess—but he doesn’t care, because he’s consumed by the explosion behind his eyes, sparks shooting through him as his mouth parts in a silent scream. 

Quick to follow, Iwaizumi gives a few weak, stuttering thrusts before finishing deep inside Tooru. Strangely enough, there’s no feeling of warmth inside of him that he would assume comes with being finished inside of, and he feels stupid when Iwaizumi pulls out and sees the condom on him. When did he even put that on?

What does someone even say after such a mind-blowing fuck? Not only a mind-blowing fuck, but his first one, too?

“That was…. Great.”

Iwaizumi snorts. “That’s a terrible post-sex one-liner.”

Tooru frowns, at both Iwaizumi’s rudeness and how grimey he feels now that the high is over. “Well, what would you say then? Probably something stupid.”

“I could say literally nothing and it’d be better than that. Where is the bathroom in this place, anyway? It’s huge,” Iwaizumi asks, completely off-topic in Iwaizumi fashion. He strips the condom from himself and ties it in a neat knot. “Actually, nevermind.”

He shuffles over to the wicker trash can by his bed and deposits the condom in it, then grabs some tissues and dabs at the come on his chest. Tooru’s about to go and get a tissue for himself when Iwaizumi wipes the come off his chest as well, and he smiles to himself. For someone so gruff, Iwaizumi can be rather gentle.

“I knew Iwa-chan has a heart,” Tooru says, but it lacks its usual pep. Exhaustion hit him like a tidal wave the moment he finished, and it’s getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open, let alone have a conversation. He crawls up to the head of the bed, pulling the comforter from where it's tucked beneath the mattress and sliding under it.

“I’m not a dick, contrary to what you think. I’m only rude to people who deserve it,” Iwaizumi says, and the mattress shifts, then there’s a warmth next to him. It’s instinct to curl into it, legs wrapping around Iwaizumi and drawing him closer. A huff of a chuckle follows, but then thick arms wrap around him, pulling him until there’s no space between him, the smell of cheap and expensive cologne mingling.

With a sigh of contentment, Tooru is out like a light.

  
  


-X-

  
  


“Oikawa. Oi, Lazykawa. Get up.”

No, Tooru doesn’t think he will get up.

He’s roughly shaken by hands in his shoulder, and reluctantly, he peels his eyes open with an exaggerated groan.

The first thing he notices is how painful the morning sunlight is, how it splits his head open with an enormous headache. Who the fuck is waking him? 

“Watari-kun, I don’t have any meetings until later. Go away.”

“Shittykawa, if I were your butler I’d quit on my first day.”

Who the… Fuck, that’s Iwaizumi. _Fuck_ , they fucked last night. Tooru literally lost his virginity to this fucking hot stranger, who stayed the night and is now bullying him. Shit. Uh… Now they’re cuddling? Limbs are wrapped around him, a warm body pressing at his back, and apparently he’s the little spoon right now. After last night, it’s not really a shocking turn of events.

“You sleep like the fucking dead. Your phone rang a few minutes ago. It was your dad. You didn’t wake up though, so I just let it happen, but he called again and it started pissing me off—”

“Wait, did you say my _dad_?”

“Uh, yeah?”

His father wants to talk to him after that disaster last night? Tooru sure as hell doesn’t want to talk to him, but he thought that the feeling was mutual. Clearly not.

“Oh, he sent a text too.”

Tooru flips around, burying his face into Iwaizumi’s chest. After a moment, a hand drops over his back, and the hesitance makes Tooru wonder if cuddling once they wake up is normal after one night stands. Whatever—Tooru likes cuddling, therefore they will cuddle.

He hums his response into Iwaizumi’s skin, feeling the muscle shift beneath him with each movement—so powerful, Iwaizumi is. “What’d it say?”

“That he’s coming over.”

Oh. _Fuck—_

The elevator bings, a sign of his impending doom, and Tooru looks over at Iwaizumi with horror. Tooru searches frantically for somewhere to hide Iwaizumi, but damn his apartment for consisting of glass doors and open areas because there’s absolutely nowhere to hide a fully-grown man. Why is his father here, he’s never even been to Tooru’s penthouse before. Why now, of all times?

Iwaizumi looks slightly confused, but seems to get the message because he goes to reach for his clothes at the foot of the bed, disentangling himself from Tooru. 

“Tooru.”

His heart drops. 

“What is the meaning of this.” 

It’s not a question, it’s a command. Slowly, Tooru looks at the source of the voice, hiding the tremble of his hands under the sheets.

His father does not look very happy with the scene before him, standing with his arms crossed in the archway, and to most, he wouldn’t look very angry, either. But Tooru has seen how his father reacts calmly, coldly, to stressful situations, forcing indifference to analyze and react properly before striking. However, the real tell is in the twitch of his eye, the stiff posture. That’s how Tooru knows that something very, very terrible is about to happen. 

Tooru pathetically tries to cover himself up by drawing the comforter up to his chest, holding them there to at least keep some of his pride intact. His facade of the perfect son has been ripped apart without him even saying a single word—years of careful construction and hours of smiling in front of a mirror, ruined.

“Father, I can explain—”

“No, let me explain what I see. What I see is my son naked in bed—a bed that I pay for—with another man. Is there really any other explanation for this?”

Tooru feels his face heating up in shame, his eyes watering uncomfortably. No, he can’t cry in front of his father. He can’t cry in front of anyone. It’s a sign of weakness, a sign that a future CEO cannot afford lest he want to get undermined. He’s supposed to be an absolute leader, an immovable stone wall, but he can’t do that if people think he’s weak.

So why does he feel so powerless right now? This isn’t how he’s supposed to feel.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tooru sees Iwaizumi slipping on his underwear and pants slowly so as not to draw attention, but it’d be hard to miss the stiffness of his shoulders. What an awkward situation to be put in, watching your one night stand’s life end. Poor guy probably wants to bolt.

“I’m sorry,” Tooru says, and even to him his voice sounds small and pitiful, but he finds that the apology is genuine. He really is sorry that his father sees him for what he is now, sorry that he couldn’t keep up the illusion a little longer, sorry that he’s a disappointment. 

“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Tooru. Not anymore. I was actually coming here to collect your apology for your disrespect last night, but it seems that there has been more than one thing you’ve been hiding from me other than your inability to make competent decisions,” Tooru’s father says callously. It hurts. It hurts terribly to hear, worse than when he overheard his father firing Akaashi last night.

“A son of mine can’t be _gay_ ,” his father continues, spitting it like an insult, and even amidst his storm of self-pity, Tooru can feel himself getting angrier and angrier. So what if he’s gay? That doesn’t negate all his achievements, all his sacrifices, for the sake of the company—top of the class at the expense of his social life, top of the business world at the expense of his self-expression—and for what? To sit here and be insulted?

“Is that really all you’re seeing right now when you look at me? That’s it? Just ‘a gay son’?” Tooru sneers, and his father’s eyes narrow at the outburst.

“I’m beginning to see no son of mine at all.” 

Tooru recoils like he’s been struck, eyes widening in mounting horror. “What’s that supposed to mean?” All of his rage dissipates, leaving an icy husk of fear of the meaning behind those words. He repeats, “What does that mean?”

His father’s lip curls, and he tilts his chin up to watch Tooru down his nose. “You’re a smart boy, figure it out.”

But Tooru doesn’t want to figure it out. Unfortunately, his mind works too fast for him to control, and he already knows exactly what his father is insinuating before he says anything.

“As of today, I will be cutting off your funding until you get this absolute mess of yours under control. If anyone asks, you’re in Okinawa on a vacation to treat yourself after all of your hard work preparing to take over the business. If you don’t manage to figure out how to fix yourself, then I’ll find someone who won’t embarrass Oikawa Solutions to take over once I retire.”

No, no, no. This can’t actually be happening. This is a dream, right? 

A painful pinch to his arm grounds him, and suddenly it’s all too real. Staying calm is no longer an option at this point, and he yells, “That’s it? That’s how little I mean to you? I’m just some heir to be used and discarded as you see fit?”

“I am going to leave this penthouse for five minutes. When I return, I expect to see your credit cards on the table, and so help me God if I find out you wrote yourself a check or took some of my cash, you will never—I repeat, _never_ —be allowed to return as my son again. If you take expensive items to sell, you won’t be allowed to return as my son. If you are even still here when I return, you—”

“Won’t be allowed to return as your son. Yeah, I think he gets it,” Iwaizumi says curtly, Tooru nearly startles at the sudden intervention. He had forgotten Iwaizumi was there.

Does Iwaizumi even know who he’s speaking to? His father has an incredible ability to ruin lives with a single phone call, and what benefit does defending a stranger from his father have? None that Tooru can identify. There has to be some sort of reason behind Iwaizumi’s actions, but that’s an issue for later.

Tooru’s father merely looks over at Iwaizumi, repulsion momentarily prominent on his face. “Don’t speak about things you have no knowledge about, boy. I should have your life ruined for what you did to my son.”

With that, he turns away from his naked, ashamed son, pressing the elevator button and waiting in front of the closed doors. It should be awkward, waiting for the elevator to arrive in absolute silence, but Tooru’s too caught up in his hurricane of thoughts to fully acknowledge how tense it should be.

Will he have to find a temporary job? He’s only ever known Oikawa Solutions—it’s his only skillset, and the chance of finding a job that requires his talents when he hasn’t even graduated university is slim. Where will he even live? He could go to Suga’s place, but that would require an explanation, plus it’s inevitable that someone snaps a picture of him and reveals he’s not actually vacationing in Okinawa.

The beep of the elevator and the swish of the doors opening are barely processed, but his father’s voice is loud and clear. “Oh, and Tooru? Don’t let the paparazzi see you.”

Then, the doors slide shut, and with it a core piece of Tooru is locked inside.

All he can do is stare for a moment at the sheets fisted in his hands, panting wildly like he’s just gone on a kilometer run. Maybe he remains motionless for a few seconds, maybe a minute, but what draws him back to the apartment is warm, wool fabric falling over his shoulder—a fluffy blanket from the living room.

Everything feels strange, a little off, right now. Tooru can feel where the mattress supports his lower half, can hear the sounds of Iwaizumi shuffling, but it’s like it’s another city over—muffled by the growing feeling of numbness.

“Hey, Oikawa. Let’s get you some clothes. You can stay at my place until everything works out, okay?” Iwaizumi murmurs gently, moving into Tooru’s line of sight, fully dressed in his clothes from the previous night.

Does Tooru even have anywhere else to stay? His head feels enormously heavy when he nods. “Okay.” A deep breath, then a more sure, firm nod. “Okay.”

The next few minutes pass in a blur of Tooru getting dressed and shoving his most valued items into an old backpack—there’s not enough time to pack a suitcase of his desired outfits, and Iwaizumi reassures him that they will find something for him to wear.

Then, Iwaizumi wordlessly wraps an arm around Tooru’s shoulder and walks him to the elevator. When the doors close, it feels an awful lot like a final judgement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> help ive never written smut before and i couldnt bring myself to reread it so pls have mercy. also, as a bi person, it's rly hard to write internalized homophobia because i know that none of it is true!! we are all amazing and special and beautiful in our own ways, so be yourself! fuck people like mr. oikawa he's a little bitch. we are who we are, and that's what makes us uniquely beautiful.
> 
> also i have commitment issues so there is no guarantee when, or even IF, this fic will be finished, but comments are always inspirational! not to be a beggar or anything but i LOVE READING COMMENTS SO PLEASE COMMENT THINGS—
> 
> *clears throat* anyways as i was saying comments help me to write faster soooo... you know... do your thing please! i love critique so please go ham


	2. Stock Inflation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oikawa tries to cook. Iwaizumi nearly kills Oikawa. What's new?

The ride to Iwaizumi’s apartment in Nakano is silent, save for telling their taxi driver directions. There isn’t much to be said—they both have a grim understanding of the situation. Tooru’s cut off from his family—most likely, he’ll have to be careful who he gives his real name too lest someone recognize him. 

If Iwaizumi weren’t so kind, Tooru genuinely has no clue where he would have stayed for the time being. Perhaps he’d have seduced someone into letting him stay the night, or promised a stranger an immense amount of money to be paid in the future in exchange for shelter—neither solution is as appealing as his current one. 

But looking out the window at Nakano, all Tooru can think is how different it is from Chiyoda. Where Tooru lives, greenery is everywhere, in blooming flowers and hedges surrounding buildings and gorgeous parks. Nakano is very compact, market booths lining the streets and already bustling with people of varying ages, despite it being only eight in the morning. It’s lively, but not in the same way Chiyoda is—people don’t go to this ward for entertainment, they come here to strictly survive.

The taxi pulls into a narrow alleyway, and he’s careful to not chip the car door on a wall when he exits with a quick “Thank you”. Iwaizumi leads the way up a set of outdoor concrete stairs to a narrow door labeled 21-6. The smell of Nakano alone is so… different… from Chiyoda that his nose scrunches.

“Welcome to my home,” Iwaizumi says, opening the door for Tooru. “Try not to touch anything.” 

The flat is the opposite of what Tooru had been expecting from the exterior. Well, not the opposite—that’d be his penthouse, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t have to school his features into a polite smile.

Inside, it’s an absolute, utter disaster. There’s clothes scattered across the floor and takeout sitting on a coffee table in front of a drab, stained couch, but the real mess is the collection of art spread throughout the living room. He takes a step inside, and then another, finding himself drawn to the pieces much like how he felt drawn to the man behind them last night in the bar. 

It’s like a free art gallery. A few messy canvases with paintings of random people, mostly men, are both hung on walls and discarded on the ground, but the real intrigue of the apartment is from the collection of sculptures perched on nearly every surface. Made from grey clay, there must be at least fifteen heads of varying appearances, all flawless enough Tooru wishes he could buy half of them from Iwaizumi right then and there and decorate his apartment with them.

He can’t do that now, obviously, but he makes a note of it in his mental checklist of  _ Things to Do When You Regain Your Inheritance _ .

“Iwa-chan, you never told me you were an artist!” Tooru remarks, shuffling over to a bust of an elderly man with close to no hair and eyes wrinkled from years of laughter. He extends a hand to boop the sculpture’s nose, but Iwaizumi grabs his wrist before he makes contact.

“I gave you one rule—no touching,” he grits out with furrowed brows and a mouth twisted in a scowl that’s so very Iwaizumi. “And I couldn’t tell you last night because we were a little occupied.”

“Still, if you had told me, I would have bought some of your work! It’s beautiful,” Tooru says, slightly awestruck, and Iwaizumi releases his wrist. The latter’s face reddens the slightest bit, and he looks almost sheepish at the praise.

“Well, you know now. Just buy something once you get your fortune or whatever back.”

The reminder of his lack of money has Tooru drooping, attention drawn from the impressive display back to Iwaizumi. “Where do I sleep? Iwa-chan’s home is a little…. Compact.” 

Iwaizumi shoots him an irritated look. His stare shifts to a wall, and he seems to consider something for a moment before saying, “You take the bed. It’s in that room.”

He points to an open door with a few smears of black paint on it. Tooru raises an eyebrow. “Why do I get the bed?”

“Because if you don’t you’ll whine about the couch.”

Fair enough. That couch does look like it could have a family of rodents living in it.

Iwaizumi’s bedroom is in a similar state to his living room—art all over, sculptures sitting on the majority of surfaces. Really, just an overall mess. The bed, at least, is relatively clean, but unmade and with food crumbs large enough to last an ant colony months distributed near the pillows. The untidiness bothers Tooru more than he’d like to admit, so he instinctively goes to call out for Watari.

He catches himself just in time. Damn, this mess is bad, but without Watari here to clean it up, who will? Tooru is just going to have to make do.

He shrugs the backpack from his shoulders onto the bed, pulling out the few things he brought: his favorite maroon hoodie, reserved only for rainy days in his penthouse. His collection of hair supplies, toothbrush and toothpaste, and a hairbrush. An astrology book and a business book. A gold brooch twisted in the shape of an elegant flower—a gift from his late mother. He sets that back inside a side pocket of his backpack, zipping it closed. It seems too personal, too important for him to just leave laying around an unfamiliar flat.

For what he suspects won’t be the first time, he’s hit with a pang of reality. This stranger’s home—this place that smells of clay, freshly dried paint, and is that mold?—will have to house him until he manages to fix himself enough to return to his lifestyle of glamour and riches. But really, that’s not the worst part of this.

The worst is that Tooru can still see how truly revolted his father was to see his son with another man in bed, the memory too fresh for him to truly process. 

Before he knows it, his eyes are watering, and he flops onto his stomach, sinking into the mattress, crumbs forgotten. No, he will not cry. No, no. no. If he cries then that’s a clear sign of his defeat—a clear sign of his father’s victory. But his father can’t win so long as Tooru ignores the pressing nausea in his throat, the constant disbelief and shock that’s plagued him since he’d been outed. 

So he dries his eyes, rolls off the bed to his feet, and takes a deep breath.

He is Oikawa Tooru, business prodigy, labeled a genius from a young age. But beneath the gaudy titles he’s earned are years of hard work—sleepless nights spent studying school material and rereading statistics over and over until his eyes burn, but then he knows the inflation rates of Shiratorizawa’s stocks and what country Oikawa Solutions is the most successful in. He is no genius, but he molded his mind to reflect how one might think. If he can’t survive this, then he has no right to take over a massive company.

But for now, he feels like the bed is calling his name. Exhaustion pulls heavily on his lids, and he doesn’t bother to crawl under the sheets before curling in a ball and passing out.

  
  


-X-

  
  


When he wakes up, it’s to the feeling of something soft brushing against his leg. It’s relaxing—or, it was until he opens his eyes to see what woke him. 

And then he kicks the covers off of him and scrambles away, nearly falling off of the bed to get Satan’s spawn away from him. It has the audacity to hiss at him, like some sort of heathen prancing on the bed like it owns it. So entitled.

“He didn’t tell me that he had the Antichrist in his flat,” Tooru says breathlessly, hurriedly getting to his feet and glaring at the black cat on the bed. Its back is arched, tail ramrod straight, teeth bared in a snarl like Tooru’s a mouse for it to sink its teeth into.

“Iwa-chan, can you get this thing away from me?” Tooru calls, backing away slowly with his hands raised in surrender—as if the cat would understand what the gesture means. Seconds pass with no reply, no brawny man coming in to dispel the situation. “It wasn’t really a question. Come and get rid of it.”

Still no reply. “Uh, are you alive?”

Did someone break-in? Tooru hears about how people in less fortunate neighborhoods don’t have the security measures to prevent someone from picking a lock and strolling into their homes with a meat cleaver that they then use to chop a person to pieces and loot their flat of anything valuable and—

Deep breaths, Tooru. In and out.

He wraps his hand around his delicately-hand painted hairbrush on the nightstand, raising it in preparation as he walks to the closed bedroom door with muffled steps. Is he about to die? He shouldn’t have trusted Iwaizumi so easily—what was he thinking, letting a stranger take him home? That’s a recipe for kidnapping, even a toddler knows that.

With his free hand, he turns the doorknob carefully so as not to make any noise, but it’s in vain because the door creaks loudly when he pushes it open. Iwaizumi needs to oil the hinges soon, it could get him killed one of these days—one of these days meaning today.

Deciding that if an intruder is in the house they would have heard the squeak of the door, Tooru shoves the door open with the brush raised above his head, ready to crack a skull open if needed. It’s with great relief that he realizes he’s alone in the living room, and the bathroom door is open enough that he can see there’s nobody hiding in there, either. 

It seems he lives to see yet another day.

He turns and tosses the brush onto the bed, then allows himself to relax a little. He’s completely (mostly) safe, Iwaizumi wouldn’t put him in danger. He’s a good guy. Hopefully. Tooru realizes just how little he knows about the guy other than he likes sculpting and looking like Lord Darkness (which is a look that works for him, completely).

Speak of him, where did he go? He should have woken Tooru and spared him from not one, but two terrible, shocking events.

Event number one—the spawn of Satan—is nowhere to be found, much to his terror. At best, it ran back to the Tokyo streets, where it belongs. At worst, it’s stalking him right now, claws unsheathed and prepared to rake them down his legs and leave him bleeding out.

Ah, there’s a note from Iwaizumi on the kitchen counter. A pleasant distraction from his nightmares of cats.

_ I tried to wake you up because I was worried you died, but gave up. I’m going to work. There are leftovers in the fridge, but eat whatever you want. I’ll be home by 22:00. _

Very blunt and to the point, written in messy scrawl that is borderline illegible. He chooses to ignore that Iwaizumi thought he was dead but didn’t bother to wake him up and check—he needs some of his pride intact.

So, that leaves Tooru to cook for himself. A glance at his watch (a beautiful Rolex Daytona that he chose from his assortment of wristwear at his penthouse) tells him it’s nearly 21:00. He really slept all day? His assistant, Yachi, would be freaking out if she knew he wasted an entire day so carelessly. She normally hounds him about his meeting times, fundraisers he RSVPed yes to, and all of that boring stuff that he has to show face at, so a free day is unheard of to both of them. 

So, Tooru has two options for dinner.

One—wait for Iwaizumi to get home and make him cook for them both.

Two—Tooru rolls up his sleeves and endures the heat of the kitchen to feed himself, risking third-degree burns and his life, possibly.

The decision isn't an easy one, but the rumbling of his stomach convinces him that he can’t wait another twenty minutes to eat, let alone an entire hour. He opens the fridge, expecting a mess similar to how the rest of the flat is, but is pleasantly surprised at the neat system Iwaizumi uses to divide his food into appropriate sections.

Since actually preparing a meal is out of the question unless Tooru wants to burn down the place, he digs through the multiple styrofoam containers holding differing foods, eventually settling on a classic chicken teriyaki (You can’t mess up chicken teriyaki, right? It should be no different from how Watari and his other chefs cook for him).

The microwave is above the oven and, thankfully, looks fairly easy to use. He puts the chicken teriyaki in it, lid open, and closes the door, then squints at the assortment of buttons. How long does it need to cook? He thinks back to the period of time between when he asks his chef or Watari to cook for him and when he’s served food—he guesses it’s about twenty minutes.

He presses twenty minutes into the microwave, then hits start. The faint orange glow and whirring noise tells Tooru he did something right, and he sits at a folding chair pulled up to a black counter that lines the kitchen. For an artist, Iwaizumi has absolutely no sense of decoration—Tooru will have to fix this disaster soon if he wants to sleep in peace.

He shifts in the chair to get comfortable, but accomplishes the exact opposite. A shooting pain from his ass sends him flying to his feet, hand hovering over the offending area but hesitant to touch. What the fuck? He didn’t feel any pain down there earlier.

Sure, he assumed losing his virginity would leave him sore, but he hadn’t felt anything but a shadow of an ache earlier. He must have been so caught up with getting disowned that he didn’t notice it. Or maybe it got worse during his nap? Either way, he isn’t so sure if he can sit down, so he eyes the couch for any sign of mice or roaches.

Concluding it’s safe for human life, he lies on his stomach, avoiding pressure on his ass at all costs, and stares at the wall to pass the time.

He should really tell Iwaizumi soon that that was his first time with a man. It feels like a dirty secret to not share with Iwaizumi—the man has the right to know. But the situation’s already complicated enough. The added addition of Iwaizumi discovering he stuck it in a virgin’s ass is not something he cares to deal with.

A putrid smell fills Tooru’s senses, and his eyes water immediately, nose crinkling in distaste. Shit, is that burning?

He’s on his feet in a heartbeat, at the microwave in two. He rips the small door open, coughing at the puff of smoke that hits him point-blank in the face, still sputtering when he attempts to salvage his dinner. Using one hand to pinch his nostrils, he manages to get the chicken teriyaki out and onto an unheated stove, nearly burning his fingers off in the process. What the hell did he do wrong? Why is it still smoking? It’s only been seventeen minutes, according to the timer. 

The smoke begins to cover the ceiling in a thick grey blanket, coming from both the microwave and the chicken, and he’s all too aware of the goddamn smoke alarm that blinks red threateningly. Wasting no time, he hoists himself to stand on the counter and rapidly fans the smoke away from the alarm with his hands, holding his breath to avoid inhaling it. 

How much smoke can the stupid food emit? He must have been standing there for two minutes already with no change. His hands are beginning to tire when the front door opens.

“I’m home early—Oikawa what the fuck did you do?”

“Iwa-chan, it won’t stop! Fix it!” 

Tooru spares Iwaizumi a glance—the man is grabbing the styrofoam container and throwing it in the sink, then dousing it with water. Relief isn’t instant—Tooru still has to defend the smoke alarm like his life depends on it—but Iwaizumi left the door open and wisps of smoke are pouring out into the night rather than floating around the ceiling.

“I think you’re good now,” Iwaizumi says, and Tooru’s glad to hear that he sounds more thankful than angry. If Iwaizumi ever got genuinely angry at him, it would be too soon. He’s a scary man.

Tooru sits on the counter rather than hop onto the floor with a twinge of pain from his ass, looking at the cabinets, the stove, the fridge—really, anything except Iwaizumi. 

“Do you want to try explaining to me how you fucked up my kitchen?”

He really doesn’t, but Tooru says anyways, “I was trying to reheat chicken teriyaki.”

“You were trying to reheat chicken teriyaki.”

“Yeah.”

Tooru risks looking up at Iwaizumi, and immediately wishes he didn’t. 

The wrath, the unbridled  _ rage  _ that is written all over Iwaizumi’s face quells the appetite he had just twenty minutes ago. This is it. Tooru survived a rabid beast and a possible home invasion only to be ended by Iwaizumi Hajime, artist extraordinaire and sex god. It’s obvious that he’s a fraying rope—one more tug and he will snap. 

Red-faced, Iwaizumi lets out a long breath, and with it, he surprisingly dispels much of his tension. His self-control is remarkable, Tooru thinks—if anyone almost set his smoke alarm off, he’d have them thrown from his penthouse in seconds. Iwaizumi mutters, “You’re ridiculous. You really don’t know how to work a microwave?”

Tooru feels his face heat up, but damn if he’ll let his reputation be tarnished. “Actually, I knew how to work the microwave.”

“Obviously not. How long did you put it in for?”

“Twenty minutes.”

Iwaizumi’s eyes bulge comically, and he cuffs the back of Tooru’s head, ignoring the indignant cry. “Twenty minutes? That needed, at most, three, dumbass! Have you ever cooked in your life?”

No, he hasn’t, but Tooru doesn’t want to admit that. Still, he can’t bring himself to lie, and the silence that ensues is telling enough. He expects to be ridiculed—what kind of twenty-one year-old doesn’t know how to reheat leftovers? It’s embarrassing. 

But the ridicule never comes. Instead, there’s a sigh that Iwaizumi follows with, “What do you want to eat.”

The words are gruff, clipped with clear annoyance, but make Tooru grin from ear to ear. “Something good.”

“Your standard of good is probably way different from mine,” Iwaizumi says, but he still opens the fridge and pulls out multiple ingredients. Tooru notes that he steers clear of the leftovers. 

A question briefly flits to Tooru’s mind, so he asks, “Where were you earlier?”

Iwaizumi has set to work, dividing up ground beef into two sections and seasoning them with an assortment of spices. As he flattens each one with his palm, he says, “Work.”

One word. Does this man know how to hold a conversation? The smile on his face is strained, he can feel it—what he doesn’t expect is Iwaizumi to say, “Are all your smiles that fake?”

“Huh?” Shock ripples through Tooru. Iwaizumi looks at him skeptically, mouth curled in a disapproving frown. 

“You don’t have to pretend to be happy with my answer if you didn’t like it. You obviously thought I was being dry, which I was, so don’t act like you liked it.”

It’s not that easy. People say things all the time at work, and Tooru has to act like he is enthralled in the conversation lest he want them to take their wallets back. His father wouldn’t be happy if that happened.

But Iwaizumi is partially right. Here, there are no people to exploit—just him and a starving artist with shallow pockets.

So he pouts. “Really? Just ‘work’? If I’m going to be staying with you then I should know all the details! Does someone hire you? Did you go to an art show or whatever?”

Iwaizumi reddens and splashes a capful of oil onto a pan. “My art doesn’t get in galleries, so nobody hires me. If it did, do you think I’d be living here?”

Right. Tooru should have been able to deduce as much from his living situation. Internally, he berates himself. “You should sculpt me sometime. Maybe then your stuff will sell.”

“I’m burning your hamburger.”

“Please don’t. I take it back.”

Iwaizumi’s deft hands place the two patties side-by-side in the pan with a sizzle, and the aroma of cooking meat erases the remnants of burnt chicken from the flat. “That smells wonderful, Iwa-chan. Who knew such a brute could appreciate the delicacy of cooking?”

“Says the one who almost set off the smoke alarm.”

“You’re so cruel! It was a compliment!”

Iwaizumi whips out a spatula from seemingly thin air and flips both of the patties, pressing down on each one to elicit a crackle from the oil beneath. Tooru wonders from the look on Iwaizumi’s face if he’s about to beat his guest with the cooking utensil. 

Instead, he grabs two buns, puts them on separate plates, and loads the patties onto them carefully. Tooru’s stomach growls at the sight of them, and he slides onto his feet from the counter to go sit at the dinner table only to find there  _ is  _ no dinner table.

“Uh, where do we eat?” Tooru asks, and Iwaizumi grabs both of their plates and sits on the couch. Iwaizumi throws his feet up on the coffee table, grabs the remote and flicks the television on, then chows down. “The couch?” Tooru cries, and Iwaizumi rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, unless you have a better idea.”

He doesn’t have a better idea, so he sits next to Iwaizumi, who hands him his plate. He puts it on his lap like a barbarian with no table manners, refusing to eat in such an undignified manner and protesting with his silence, but his hunger wins out over his pride in less than ten seconds. 

It’s all worth it when he sinks his teeth into the burger, grease dribbling down his chin, but he doesn’t bother to wipe it. It’s an explosion of complex flavors blended beautifully together into a juicy, disgustingly-fattening monstrosity of goodness. Wordlessly, he devours the rest of the burger in a minute, licking his fingers savagely after with a disgusting  _ slurp  _ on each digit. Honestly, the burger could have tasted terrible and he still would have eaten it with such fervor—thinking about it, he hasn’t eaten actual food since the fundraiser yesterday.

Was it only yesterday that he defended Bokuto and Akaashi? It seems weeks away right now.

“What movies do you like?” Iwaizumi asks, and Tooru glances over at him. It surprises him to see pinched brows, furrowed in clear concern. 

It’s more emotion than his father has ever shown him. Tooru isn’t sure if he’s worthy of it, but he can’t help but crack a small, fond smile. “You know that American show, Supernatural?”

-X-

Hajime regrets letting Oikawa choose the show.

He hadn’t heard of Supernatural prior to tonight, and right now, he wishes it had stayed that way. The show is terrible (two hot brothers have to save the world from God’s sister?), but Oikawa watches it with wide eyes, practically trembling with excitement whenever the brothers find themselves in paranormal danger. It’s almost endearing how attached he is to the fictional characters—keyword almost, because Hajime still has to listen to the incessant commentary in between action scenes: “Wow, Iwa-chan, look at those terrible special effects!” “That werewolf looks like you, don’t you think?” “Just kill them, already!”.

But he endures it because it’s better than that lost expression Oikawa donned earlier, eyes downcast and far away from here—likely back in whatever world people of his wealth exist in, because it sure as hell isn’t this one. Even by Hajime’s high standards, Oikawa’s had a rough day.

Actually, his rough day may have begun last night, before he went to that bar. Hajime could see Oikawa’s foul mood from a mile away while he slouched over the counter, downing shot after shot like there was no tomorrow—it’s the whole reason why nobody approached him, despite him looking like… that. Every inch of his being was screaming ‘leave me alone’, but Hajime’s been told he’s a nice guy, so he went up there with two intentions: One, to make this gorgeous stranger sitting alone feel better. Two, to fuck him into either one of their mattresses.

Maybe his goals were one and the same, at the time.

Either way, it didn’t matter—he only succeeded in the latter of the two. The first, however, he failed miserably at, because here Oikawa is, ostracized from his family and miserable for it. He tries to put on a tough exterior, Hajime can tell, but those fake smiles look more like a baring of teeth to Iwaizumi because his eyes tell a different, more somber story. 

For now, though, there isn’t a hint of faux happiness when Oikawa points at the television, one hand shaking Hajime’s shoulder excitedly. “Look, Iwa-chan, you’re missing it! Dean’s about to kill that gross bug monster!”

Hajime scowls—he’s done that a lot in the past twenty-four hours—and says, “Bugs are cool, not gross.”

Oikawa mutters something under his breath, but Hajime catches it: “I can see how a simple caveman like you would like bugs.”

For Oikawa’s sake, he ignores the quip, stealing a glance at the other man’s watch for the time—23:56. He does a double take, recognizing the glint of polished silver and neat face of it, and his face blanches, a sudden roiling in his stomach. What the hell is Oikawa doing, bringing such an expensive piece with him—does he know the danger being seen with one of those could put him in? People are desperate creatures—Hajime knows this for a fact—and Oikawa is a sitting goose with it neatly clasped around his wrist like it’s no more important than a piece of string tied with a knot.

“It’s pretty, right? I picked it myself,” Oikawa says suddenly, and Hajime startles at being caught ogling. Oikawa doesn’t seem to mind—in fact, he looks a bit smug, raising his wrist to their eye-level and tilting it so that Hajime has a good angle to adore the watch from. Hajime wants to wipe the cocky look right off of his flawless face, but the way the watch catches the light makes him forget his methods of humbling Oikawa in favor of staring in wonder once more.

“Don’t you pick all of your watches yourself?” Hajime asks, hand reaching out to brush over a stripe of gold along the band, admiring every skillful ridge and indent, mapping it out—it’s unlikely he’ll ever touch something so expensive again. Ever. Might as well enjoy it.

“Most of my watches are gifts from people—very, very rich people,” Oikawa explains, and Hajime pulls his hand away to settle his arm along the top of the sofa with raised brows. Oikawa’s eyes briefly flicker to trace the movement, and he continues, “Part of my job is getting my people to like me. Sometimes, they like me enough to spend money on me like I’m some sugar baby or something. I’m not complaining. I graciously accept their gifts, send them a thank you card stamped with promises of meeting again sometime, and they keep coming back to send me more stuff.”

There’s a glint Oikawa gets in his eye when he talks about his work at Oikawa Solutions, Hajime’s noticed—it’s not a longing or sadness for what he had less than twenty-four hours ago. It’s a spark of true passion, one buried so deep within Oikawa that it’s become a core part of him, ingrained in his very being. Hajime recognizes it for what it is because that’s exactly how sculpting feels to him—irreplaceable.

Suddenly, understanding Oikawa becomes a whole lot easier.

“I don’t know why anybody would buy you shit, let alone shit that costs thousands of dollars,” Hajime teases, and Oikawa opens his mouth to spew some bullshit but a yawn halts him in his tracks. It’s rather dramatic, Hajime thinks, watching as Oikawa stretches his arms behind him, popping one of his shoulders.

“Go to bed,” Hajime orders, tone leaving no room for argument—but Oikawa loves to push his luck with him.

“No. I shouldn’t even be tired, I slept all day—there it is! That demon again!” Oikawa screeches, fumbling his way to the far corner of the couch and pointing at… Picasso? Hajime watches as the cat prances towards them, rubbing her side against Hajime’s shins. He bends down and scoops her up, leaning back into the cushions with her secure in his lap. 

“So you’ve met Picasso here,” Hajime says, rubbing a hand down her back and eliciting a purr. Meanwhile, Oikawa is pale of a sheet, legs drawn up to his chest and as far as humanly possible from Picasso and Hajime. “She’s just a cat, don’t be a wuss.”

Oikawa asks furiously, “Why is she even here? Shouldn’t she be out on the streets?”

Is Oikawa an idiot? His annoyance flares, and he forces himself to calm down enough to reply, “Because she’s my cat.”

If possible, Oikawa moves farther away, teetering on the edge of the couch. “That’s not a cat. That’s a monster.” 

On cue, Picasso startles at a sudden roar from the television, shooting to her paws and leaping off the couch gracefully. Hajime watches Oikawa’s glare follow her until she disappears behind the kitchen counter, and he visibly relaxes with her absence, sliding closer to Hajime once again.

It’s so ridiculous that he can’t help but huff a breathy laugh, hiding it behind his hand in hopes Oikawa won’t see it. It will only fuel his stupid antics.

Another dramatic yawn has Hajime scolding him to go to bed, threatening to sick Picasso on him if he doesn’t listen. It’s painful, watching how sluggishly Oikawa moves, the slow manner of his speaking—painful enough that Hajime resorts to dragging him by an arm, shoving him onto the bed (in a manner so different from their first meeting), and slamming the door shut.

He runs a hand through his hair and collapses on the couch in exhaustion. One hand blindly feels around the coffee table for the remote and he shuts off the television, bathing the apartment in darkness.

Was letting Oikawa stay with him really the best idea? The kid clearly isn’t familiar with anything other than his glamorous life as a kid born to riches, and Hajime can barely provide for himself. He has debts to pay from years ago leeching away his money—adding Oikawa onto his bills isn’t his best decision.

But he keeps seeing the moment it Oikawa understood that he was being disowned—the confusion, the fear, and the way he tried to keep it all hidden under a thinly-veiled facade of cheer and snark. It was all-too reminiscent of his internal turmoil when he first came out to his parents—at least he had come out willingly.

Poor kid. 

Hajime doesn’t know when his eyes drift shut, or when he begins to fade into the shapeless realm of sleep, but he knows his last thought is of Oikawa’s face when those elevator doors closed with them locked inside, contorted with a mix of terror and disbelief.

He has nightmares.

  
  


-X-

  
  


Tooru wakes to the clattering of pans and a cat burrowing in the crease of his knees.

Amazingly, he doesn’t scream—only makes a choked noise and nearly falls off the bed. Picasso’s watchful eyes stare at him innocently, but Tooru can see through her faux immaculateness straight into the burning pit that is her soul. He’s out of his bedroom in seconds after that, briefly noting that he’s been in the same t-shirt and pants for over a day now and probably reeks of sweat and musty deodorant—a far cry from his usual lavender-scented shampoo.

Iwaizumi is at the helm of the kitchen, whipping up something that smells absolutely delightful, tongue poking out of his mouth in absolute focus. Tooru lumbers to the couch in a zombie-like state, feet dragging behind him, and drapes himself bonelessly on it like he owns the place. 

His face is buried in the cushions when he hears Iwaizumi call out, “Oikawa, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” 

“Why not?” The words are muffled.

“Who knows all the shit that’s in there. Some bugs have probably already colonized your hair by now. You haven’t showered in so long they probably saw some crumbs in there and ate them for breakfast.”

Tooru’s eyes fly open in sheer panic and he flips himself onto his back, then decides he would rather not be on the couch at all and clambers to his feet. “Iwa-chan, disgusting! Do you even know what ‘sanitary’ means?”

“Not everyone has a butler to call on when they don’t want to get up off their ass and throw their trash away.” 

“Ah, Watari-kun. How I miss him in a trashy apartment like this, though this might be beyond his capabilities. I probably wouldn’t have him clean this anyways—I don’t want to be responsible if he catches some sort of disease.” 

Tooru can practically hear Iwaizumi simmering, even while he turns the T.V. on and surfs the channels. Settling on a news station, he props his feet up on the coffee table, rests his elbow on the armrest of the couch, and listens to the mindless sounds of the morning.

He hadn’t realized he was dozing off, chin cradled in his hand, until Iwaizumi smacks the back of his head and jarrs him back to the present. With heavy eyes, he glowers up at his attacker, who looks completely unamused.

Iwaizumi mutters, barely audible over the chatter of the news station, “Breakfast’s on the counter.”

“Bring it over to me.” Iwaizumi looks more than displeased, jaw clenched and glare scathing—it’s like a cloud of irritation descends on the room with the words. With more than just his usual scowl, his nostrils flare before turning his back on Tooru stiffly.

Blearily, Tooru blinks. What the hell was that about? Was it something he said? He figures if it was something important, Iwaizumi would have spoken up—he doesn’t come off as the reserved type. Still, Iwaizumi doesn’t bring him his breakfast, so he must be in a bad mood, possibly from rising at 7:30 in the morning.

A name from the news catches his attention, and as hard as he tries to ignore the sudden familiar face on the television, it’s like the pull of the T.V. is magnetic, and he finds himself leaning forward and squinting to make out the fine details of his father’s face.

“...renowned businessman and CEO of Oikawa Solutions, Oikawa Tomio, has recently made a statement in defense of Sugawara Shoji’s decision to fire the man in question. ‘Shoji is not a man who fires his employees over personal vendettas,’ Tomio stated briefly earlier today when asked for his opinion on the case, cementing his stance on who he believes to be in the right. His son and heir, Oikawa Tooru, has yet to comment-”

The channel is flipped to a children’s cartoon, but not soon enough to prevent a sudden turn of his stomach when his own profile pops up, smiling brightly at the cameras, flashing his signature peace sign. Iwaizumi holds the remote, and Tooru thinks that it might break with how tightly he’s gripping it. 

Iwaizumi catches the questioning look Tooru gives him and says unconvincingly, “I already see your ugly mug enough.”

Before Tooru can help it, he smiles—close-lipped but  _ real _ . “Right, like your face is much better,” he chirps, but it sounds too affectionate to come off as an insult. Thankfully, they both choose to ignore each other’s small shows of care in favor of lounging about. Iwaizumi sits in a folding chair near the kitchen counter, but not before grabbing a giant lump of clay from a cabinet.

After a few more minutes of watching T.V. (the dumb show Iwaizumi turned on proves to be rather interesting) Picasso makes an appearance again, and luckily for Tooru she goes straight for her food bowls near the front door—a safe distance away from human life, right where she belongs. 

Meanwhile, Iwaizumi pulls out a printed picture of an elderly lady with short-cropped hair and eyes with lines at the edges that indicate years of laughter from a drawer. He sets to work shaping the clay carefully. Tooru admires from his spot on the couch the confident way in which he manipulates it with broad hands, carving when he needs to with a selection of tools for precise incisions.

It’s immensely satisfying to watch a face be formed from what used to be a chunk of nothing—at first, Tooru has his doubts of it eventually looking like the lady in the picture, but as more time passes, more clay is shaved away, and he can make out a cheekbones, a nose, eyes… 

When Iwaizumi peels himself from the chair, he frowns at something on the counter, then glances over at Tooru. “You didn’t eat your breakfast. And I can feel you watching me, it’s annoying.”

“Well, I can’t help it. Iwa-chan’s so good!” A quick glance at his watch tells him that it’s… 8:43? 

He must have made a face, because Iwaizumi asks, “What?”

“It’s been an hour already?”

Iwaizumi looks at him incredulously. “Uh, yeah? Why, it’s not like you have somewhere to be.”

“No, that’s not it,” Tooru says thoughtfully, leaning back into the couch. “I guess time really does fly.”

Once again, Iwaizumi looks at him like he’s grown a third eye. “You’re weird,” he says, bending an arm up and over his shoulder and pushing down on it in a stretch. Holy fuck, his biceps are huge. He’d been too drunk to really appreciate anything other than the tattoos the first time they had met, and even those look much sharper without the haze of intoxication.

An inquiry pops into his head. “Who gave you those tattoos? They’re very talented, if they can make tattoos look so… un-thuglike.” 

For the second time that morning, Iwaizumi’s face screws up for reasons Tooru can’t figure out. “Tattoos don’t make a person a thug. They’re art. Two of my friends have done the majority of these, and that doesn’t make them thugs,” he says with a sharp edge. “I’m not a thug either.”

Tooru bristles at the hostile tone and chooses to ignore it altogether, so he goes back to watching the T.V.. Iwaizumi sighs, but Tooru keeps his attention strictly on the screen, refusing to let Iwaizumi know that he cares about his opinion.

He can hear when Iwaizumi gets back to work on the sculpture from the soft patter of clay hitting the counter, and he only looks over to watch when he’s sure Iwaizumi is completely absorbed in sculpting. Unlike last time, his attention is captured by the artist himself. 

His chiseled face has deep creases in it from a furrowed brow, and his tongue pokes from the corner of his mouth adorably; two things Tooru has learned to be a tell of his determination. His passion for art is obvious in the animated manner in which he speaks about it, but watching him in action, it is much more prominent. How someone so talented can be so undiscovered, Tooru isn’t sure.

“Stop staring, it’s messing me up.” Iwaizumi startles Tooru, and he must be some sort of alien because he said that without confirming whether or not he really was staring. 

“I’m not staring,” Tooru retorts. “Iwa-chan needs to get his sight checked.”

“I told you before, I can feel it.”

“And what does my stare feel like?”

“Disgusting. Get it off.”

Tooru gasps at the audacity he has, but isn’t really offended. “You could do with a little more manners!”

From what Tooru can see of Iwaizumi’s face, his lips are curved slightly upwards, even as he carves out a dimple in the woman’s cheek. “Who is that for?” Tooru asks without thinking, and Iwaizumi doesn’t pause his work.

“One of my street customers. His wife died a few months ago, and he requested that I sculpt her—for money, of course, but I gave him a discount.”

If it were possible, Tooru’s heart would have grown three sizes then and there. He wants to praise Iwaizumi for his kindness (an idiotic business move, to give discounts, but wholesome), but all that comes out is, “You’re like the new Mother Theresa. Mother Iwa-chan.”

“Shutup and let me work. You’re so annoying, like a little bird constantly chirping in my ear. I miss when I lived in silence.” He sets to work on a hooked nose, delicate in its beauty and antique in its shape.

“You must have been so bored without me here.”

They lapse back into silence, both content in each other’s company, until the clay perfectly resembles the printed picture, down to the last hair. The process was slow and painstaking—watching Iwaizumi was entertaining, but he made slow progress thanks to the exactness of his carvings. By the time he announces that he’s finished, Tooru’s watch reads 11:12.

While Iwaizumi washes his hands in the kitchen sink, Tooru takes his spot in the folding chair, elbows propped on his lap and head in his palms. Looking up at the round, smiling face of the old woman, at each divot and careful line, he asks, “How do you even return this to your buyer if you met them on the streets?”

A side-glance to Iwaizumi shows him shaking excess water off of his hands over the sink, then wiping them on his clay-stained shirt. “We agree on a time and day to meet up again, and I write it down in my notebook so that I don’t forget. I have to give that to him tomorrow at… 20:00 maybe? I’ll have to check.”

Tooru nods, only half-listening. He reaches a hand, index finger extended, to poke at the head’s neat jawline, but Iwaizumi admonishes him with a smack to his wrist, “No touching! If anything happens to this, I’ll have a hard time paying my next rent, so be careful.”

He’s serious, more serious than Tooru’s ever seen him—his eyes have a distinct guilty glint in them, and that’s how Tooru figures that there’s more to ‘paying his rent’ than what’s on the surface. He doesn’t press for information, but stores it in the forefront of his head to contemplate sometime. 

So he smiles blindingly and quips, “I would never touch Iwa-chan’s work! I think she’d look better with a headband, though.”

“Wipe that gross smile off of your face. I can’t just add shit to her, I was given a specific photo to replicate. Anyways, I’m going out. Try to shower and eat while I’m gone.”

“Where are you going?”

“Work. I need to fire this, too.” Iwaizumi carefully picks up the freshly-finished sculpture, cradling it with both hands. His fingers somehow don’t leave imprints in the clay, despite the fact that it must be slightly soft. Maybe it’s a sculpter talent?

Tooru hums. “Have fun, Iwa-chan. Try not to disappoint your customers too much.”

“Shutup. See you later.” The sound of the front door closing follows, leaving Tooru alone with nothing but his thoughts and  _ Hello Kitty  _ playing as white noise.

  
  


-X-

  
  


The day crawls by slowly, with Tooru getting up only a few times to piss and grab water. The omelette Iwaizumi is still untouched hours later—Tooru can’t quite manage the appetite to eat it, for some reason, but he manages a few granola bars to supplement himself. Picasso minds her own business, thankfully, occasionally prodding into the living room then scurrying away when Tooru shoos her away with obnoxious shouts and flailing limbs.

By the time Iwaizumi gets home, it’s dark again—Tooru hadn’t even noticed night falling until the front door creaks open. He looks exhausted, with heavy movements and loud footsteps, and Tooru notices the huge messenger bag he lugs with him for the first time, smeared with an array of differing paints in an unorthodox rainbow. He also has the finished and fired headshot of the deceased woman tucked to his chest with his empty hand, which he gingerly sets on the corner of the counter.

He scans the apartment before his eyes settle on Tooru, and his disapproval can be felt across the flat. “You haven't moved from that spot?”

“Yes I have,” Tooru insists, but Iwaizumi remains unconvinced. He takes one look at the omelette still on the counter and his brows knit together.

“Why didn’t you eat it?”

Tooru shrugs. “Wasn’t hungry. I had some granola bars, though.”

“I can tell from the wrappers you left here, right next to the trash. And still no shower?”

All of these questions are starting to make Tooru feel like he’s in an interrogation with an officer, so  _ excuse him  _ if he’s a little unfriendly when he says, “Why, does Iwa-chan think I smell bad? I think it’s just your apartment rubbing off on me, with this disgusting musk it has. Clean it.”

Iwaizumi’s face is one of momentary irritation that shifts to animosity. “If my apartment smells so bad, why don’t you just leave? Go move in with one of your rich friends with a butler to bring you your plate and throw out your granola wrappers for you.”

Quickly, Tooru shoves on a mask of indifference to disguise the building annoyance intermingled with guilt. Both of them are probably just tired from the day—Tooru certainly doesn’t mean a word he says about Iwaizumi’s apartment, but he isn’t so sure whether or not Iwaizumi is genuine in his complaints. He should just leave Tooru alone to mope—he knows how unpleasant he’s being, acting like some toddler, but he can’t stop. 

Ignoring Iwaizumi, he rises to his feet, ignoring the tumbling of his stomach and throbbing of his head as he does so. “I’m going to my room- your room- the bedroom. Good night.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t respond, and he closes the door with a little more force than necessary, exhaustion pricking at him despite having done nothing all day. Fatigue is a strange thing.

Flopping on the bed and curling up in a ball, feeling smaller than ever, Tooru wishes he could nap.

But fatigue really is a strange thing, because he stays awake for hours, entertaining himself with his own train of thought. It’s not like he has any meetings to go to in the mornings anyways, so eyebags shouldn’t be an issue. 

-X-

  
  


This time, Tooru isn’t woken up by the clanging of pots and the hellbeast cuddling him.

That’s not to say they aren’t there when the sun rises, of course—Picasso tried to slide sneakily into the cap between his knee and thigh in the early morning, but Tooru caught her in the act and shoved her off the bed, assuming she could land on her feet. Iwaizumi was up at around 7:30 again, not bothering to be quiet with his cooking, pans clanking loudly enough to wake up the entirety of Tokyo.

No, Tooru isn’t woken up by Picasso or Iwaizumi cooking because he had been awake for the majority of the night anyways, sleeping fitfully in between sporadic thoughts about… well, everything. He shouldn’t have been so rude to Iwaizumi last night, but the knowledge isn’t new to him—he knew exactly what he was saying when he had said it, which makes it even worse.

He had decided to swallow his pride and apologize to Iwaizumi in the morning sometime last night, but actually working up the nerve to do so is much harder than he originally thought, so he waits until Iwaizumi quiets down to finally leave the bedroom on unsure steps.

He expects Iwaizumi to either yell at him or ignore him entirely—what he doesn’t consider is that Iwaizumi left the apartment, choosing to not deal with Tooru altogether. A note taped to the fridge clarifies his whereabouts in messy writing.

_ Out to work. Breakfast is in the fridge. Put it in the microwave for 1 minute and nothing more, but pour it into a different bowl first. Eat it or I’m kicking you out. Shower. _

Blunt. To-the-point. Very Iwaizumi-esque. He doesn’t seem too mad about last night, but then again, it’s only a brief note—talking to him in person is a whole other matter. 

Tooru can practically hear the commanding voice ordering him to eat and shower, and his stomach rumbles on cue, the final straw that has him strolling to the fridge. Ever since that burger Iwaizumi cooked for him, eating has been something Tooru forgets frequently—it’s not at the forefront of his mind, especially without his assistant badgering him about his tight schedule, without Watari practically shoving the food in front of his face (and the food he served was irresistible). 

Not that Iwaizumi isn’t a good cook—quite the opposite, actually, if the burger told Tooru anything. It’s just… different.

Miso soup is in a small, cylindrical container on the fridge’s bottom shelf with a sticky note labeled ‘Shittykawa’s Breakfast’, and he follows Iwaizumi’s instructions to warm it up in a separate bowl. It burns his hands when he takes it out of the microwave, and he hisses but pushes through.

He takes a few sips, nibbles on the tofu, then leaves the still-steaming bowl on the kitchen counter in favor of returning to his favorite spot on the couch. One of the few good things to come of getting cut off is that he has a lot more free time which has allowed him to discover the beauty of reality T.V. (other than Supernatural, of course). He makes himself comfortable and watches the television, observing the luxury life of some random rich woman who has a harem of men chasing after her.

Hours pass at a crawl once again, similar to yesterday, but at least he has the television to pass the time. He doesn’t even use his phone anymore, leaving it somewhere on the bed rather than in his trousers’ pocket—the pocket of the same pair of trousers he’s been wearing since he’s arrived at the apartment. The smell of them is absolutely disgusting, like stale bread and crackers. Still, it’s a scent he’s gotten used to, so it doesn’t bother him as much as it probably should. He blames it on the mess around him. He claims to have just picked up the scent of Iwaizumi’s apartment in general, so it’s not his fault.

The show is picking up, with the love interest on a date with some poor guy (an extremely handsome poor guy, Tooru might add), when Picasso decides to show up.

She prances much too close to the couch for Tooru’s comfort, so he leans over and shoos her away, muttering some insults. With what could only be a glare at him, she trots away, and that’s that.

Until she reappears on the kitchen counter, dangerously close to the forgotten bowl of miso soup at the edge of the counter. She paws at it, and Tooru’s on his feet in seconds. 

“Get away from that!” he shouts, but Picasso is focused on pushing the bowl of soup nearer to a fate of falling, oblivious to Tooru’s yell. 

He’s about to grab for the soup when his foot catches on a box of paints on the ground, and he stumbles forward. Picasso leaps away with a hiss as Tooru grapples for purchase on the counter, his elbow bumping into something hard in his struggle to stay on his feet.

He doesn’t realize what that ‘something’ is until he hears shattering. Realistically, it couldn’t have been any louder than the volume of the T.V., but it might as well have been a gunshot in a cemetery.

Slowly, he looks down, swallowing thickly. Jagged grey pieces scatter the carpet, a battlefield of corpses spread thinly among the carpet. Among them, Tooru notices an entire hooked nose, and suddenly he wishes Iwaizumi had never taken him in. Living on the streets would be better than whatever hell awaits him when Iwaizumi finds out what happened to his most recent piece—the piece he’s supposed to sell at 20:00.

Tooru checks his watch, and the world must hate him because 20:00 is only a half-and-hour from now.

“Shit. Shit!” he screams, dropping to his knees, careful to avoid sharp shards. He reaches to pick up a piece, but hesitates over the mess, hand trembling in frustration. What the hell can he even do to fix this? There isn’t anything. No solutions. 

In simpler terms, he’s fucked.

He looks around for a broom unsuccessfully, then eventually picks up the pieces individually and sets them back on the counter. He knicks his finger only once, barely a bead of blood forming, but he sucks it away hurriedly so that he can get back to work.

There’s still a pile of broken clay on the ground when the front door opens, scarier than any horror movie that Tooru’s watched. With a knot in his stomach and suffocating dread in his mind, he looks up at Iwaizumi, feeling a pang of… guilt? That’s something he’s been feeling a lot more frequently now that Iwaizumi is in the picture. 

“What happened?”

The words are cold, anger evident in the harsh syllables. Tooru wants to hide away back in the bedroom, his penthouse—anywhere but here, looking pitiful at Iwaizumi’s feet.

“What one is that?” Iwaizumi demands, bending down to observe the pieces with blazing eyes. There’s the unbroken grey nose with minimal cracking in the midst of the chaos, and even from something as unrecognizable as a nose Tooru knows that Iwaizumi recognizes it by its prominent arch. “This is my commission. You shattered my commission, for her husband.”

Deadly calm, Tooru notes about Iwaizumi, and very different from the fiery outbursts he normally has when Tooru messes up. He nods, forcing his voice to be level when he mutters a weak, “I’m sorry.”

Iwaizumi brushes a finger over the delicate, wrinkled nose, tracing the slope down to the tip. He takes a shaky breath and pulls his hand back, then says sternly, “I’ll give you one chance to explain what happened, and you better have a damned good excuse. Shit, how am I going to pay him off this week?”

Tooru ignores the last part of the sentence, focusing on justifying himself. “I saw Picasso on the counter about to knock over my miso soup around ten minutes ago, and I panicked. On my way to get her away, I tripped and accidentally hit it with my elbow. I am so, so sorry.”

For a moment, nobody talks, but it might as well have been the loudest few seconds of Tooru's life—the T.V.’s too loud, the air conditioning is too loud,  _ everything  _ is too loud. Iwaizumi takes a shuddering breath, and Tooru expects anger. Instead, Iwaizumi exhales, silently picks up the nose, and gently sets it back on the counter. Then another piece. And another. 

Tooru follows suit, and though he feels his help is unwanted, it’s his fault they’re in this situation in the first place. It takes only a few minutes to deem the floor safe to walk on again, and Iwaizumi stands, knees cracking. 

Glancing at the nearly-full bowl of miso soup, then back at Tooru with an unreadable face, all he says is, “I’m going to go work, I have to pay this off soon.”

“I can help. Let me help you make money. I’m a good businessman, I can fix this—”

“Oikawa. Please, just stop,” Iwaizumi says, and Tooru feels himself breaking apart at the tremor of his voice, the worry lines in his face. He’s not mad, Tooru realizes, he’s scared. Upset. Nervous. There’s more to this then what meets the eye.

Tooru doesn’t say anything. Silence seems to be what both of them want right now, so reads the room and keeps his lips sealed in a tight line. Iwaizumi runs a hand through his hair, grabs his colorful (but dull, in the moment) briefcase, and is out the door in a moment.

It feels like the eyes of every single sculpted headshot in the room are watching Tooru, glaring with disdain and disappointment and everything that reminds Tooru of  _ that  _ morning. But he doesn’t cry—he can’t cry. He promised himself he wouldn’t let his father win, and that’d be as good as a surrender, so he forces himself to reign in his emotions for just a little while longer.

Regret runs deep in his veins, a longing to go back in time and change the situation. But he can’t, so he inhales through his nose and gets to his feet, using the counter to pull himself up.

He wasn’t lying when he told Iwaizumi he could fix this. There’s a half-formed idea in his mind already, and he glances at the watch on his wrist. It has value, more value than anything in Iwaizumi's apartment combined—most of the items he brought are the same. And that's when he gets an idea.

  
  


-X-

  
  


It’s dark out.

Normally, the night is a time when Tooru thrives. He gets work done, makes a few calls, maybe watches a movie—basically, he does everything he can’t do in his busy days. He also adores being able to see the stars, though few so close to the city. All in all, it’s a time that he can more than manage himself in.

But this is unfamiliar territory, his mind supplies, heightening every crash of a beer bottle or shout of a person. The streets of Nakano at night, logically, are not very dangerous in certain areas, but he just isn’t sure which areas those  _ are _ . He hadn’t even bothered to look at a map of the area in the days he’s been in Iwaizumi’s flat, which he’s beginning to regret now.

It’s dark out, and he has no clue where to go, but Tooru won’t let that stop him. 

By the time he makes it to a market, his heart rate is speeding and his palms are sweaty, and not from overexertion. The only people out at this time are people who can’t be out during the day—the dealers, the criminals, the punks. That much Tooru is certain of because he’s seen multiple seedy-looking affairs and people on his five-minute trek to find someone willing to do a deal with him.

After ten minutes of looking, Tooru is tired.

After thirty, he’s frustrated.

After an hour, he’s on the verge of giving up and finding another solution (preferably back in the safety of Iwaizumi’s apartment) when someone startles him with a tap to his shoulder from behind.

He jumps, turning around so quickly that spots dance in his vision. (He’s not entirely sure why he’s slightly dizzy from a movement he’s done a million times before, but that’s a question for later.)

Immediately, he feels the blood drain from his face, and he takes a step back. The man who had gotten his attention is the poster boy of ‘Villain Handbook 101’, with bloodshot eyes and gravity-defying hair that is certainly dyed because there’s no possible way that his hair can naturally be  _ that  _ red. The villain extends a spindly arm with boney, pale fingers. 

Tooru flinches internally, but quickly realizes the man is waiting for a handshake. Unsure if he’s willing to shake this stranger’s hand, he chooses to put on a happy face and say with fake cheer, “Hello there. Did you want something from me?”

The returning smile he gets reminds him of the Cheshire Cat—there’s no way it can have good intentions. “I actually do! I’ve been watching you walk around here for, like, an hour. You lost, buddy?”

This is a terrible idea. Why was this man watching him for so long? Tooru must be an idiot because, despite the warning bells ringing in his head, he continues with his plan. “Well, a little. I’ve been trying to sell this hairbrush, but nobody’s out so late, and I’m new to the area so I’m not sure where to go to sell this late.”

There’s a cruel calculation in the other man’s eyes, like Tooru’s nothing but a mouse and he’s a lion. That smile of his grows even wider. “Oh? Why would anyone want a hairbrush?”

Tooru reaches into his back pocket, easily pulling the brush from it thanks to the shallowness that left the top of the bristles protruding. Preparing his best Business Heir Voice, he says, “It’s been handpainted by Baba Rin—are you familiar with her works? No? The craftsmanship is beautiful. Very delicate, and painted with care. I’ve been hoping to sell it for a while now, though.” Lie. He’s rather attached to this brush, since he had requested its creation in the first place. 

Neither the man’s expression nor tone changes. Still a teasing lilt with an unsettling undertone when he asks, “If it’s so great, why are you selling it?”

“I need to make some extra cash. There’s something I want to buy soon, preferably tonight.” It’s the truth, but omitting a few minor details.

The stretch of silence that follows couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but felt like minutes creeping by. He holds the other man’s gaze, hoping to get a good read on him, but that irritating grin hasn’t shifted. The disguise it provides rivals Tooru’s own. 

Finally, the man says, “I’m not interested in the brush.”

It’s all Tooru can do to not visibly droop. He’s blown his only chance. He glances to the ground, though his signature grin is still secure on his face, avoiding eye contact to hide his disappointment. It must look extremely plastic right about now.

“But you have something else I want. To purchase, that is.”

He tries not to perk up with hope—he really does—but exhaustion has a few of his defensive walls lowered. He finds himself looking back up, back at the pallid, gaunt face, slightly taller than him. His voice sounds too excited when he asks, “Oh? And what would that be?”

Honestly, Tooru hasn’t the slightest clue what the other man could want. The brush is the most valuable thing on him. But there’s a weight on his wrist, feeling like it’s anchoring him to the bottom of the ocean. The man can’t possibly be referring to—

“I’ll take that watch off of you.”

“I’m not trying to be rude here, but this is extremely expensive. Like, extremely.”

The man ignores Tooru’s skepticism. “Makes me wonder how someone living in Nakano got a hold of it. You probably shouldn’t wear that around, it makes you stick out. You’re obviously trying to blend in here,  _ newbie _ . Anyways, I’ll offer you a million yen for it.”

A million yen is only half of the price he had originally bought the piece for. It’s customized for him, molded to his wrist. It’s something that he bought for himself with money that  _ he  _ made, not his father. One of the only things he’s been using consistently in the past few days, one of the few things he has from his penthouse—from before Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi. A flash of his pinched face, seamed and staring at the shattered sculpture. “ _ How am I going to pay him off this week?” _ he had said, unsure and much too small for someone so big, someone with such huge aspirations. 

Tooru’s not going to get a better deal than this. 

The watch is off his wrist and in the man’s hand in a heartbeat. 

“Come this way, my good sir. I’m Tendou Satori.”

  
  


-X-

  
  


The deal went smoothly, as well as everything that came after. A million yen is a huge deposit into Tooru’s bank account and he worried that his father might notice if they did it all at once, so he and Tendou decided to deposit in increments over the span of a week. Tendou was strange, constantly asking prying questions that Tooru had to dodge, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved when he could finally get away from the man.

Now, he carries a small bucket of clay into the apartment with a naked wrist. The shards are still on the counter, the miso soup cold where it was before. Picasso snoozes on the couch, purring in time with the fall of her chest, head perched on her paws. A half-hour ago, he would have wanted to join her in a nap, but now he’s a man on a mission.

He has no time to waste. 

He sets the bucket of clay on the coffee table in the living room, then cracks his fingers. He had thought long and hard about how to win back Iwaizumi’s favor ever since he first ventured out of the apartment. (He also thought about how to make him smile. Strange.) Oikawa Tooru is a man of many talents, most of them useless in his current situation, but he’s always been good at reading people. A very useful advantage to have.

Iwaizumi wasn’t just upset about Tooru breaking his statue—before that, he was always pointing out the mess Tooru left around. It was stupid of him to not even consider Iwaizumi’s words during their first argument, but instead, Tooru had stormed to his room. Now, the apartment’s mess has been made worse, much worse from the first time he arrived, but he had been to focused on the stupid television to notice.

But it’s nothing he can’t fix.

So he reaches over and picks up the bowl of miso soup, drains the broth in the sink, then dumps the remnants in the trash

A bead of sweat rolls down his cheek. Man, cleaning is so hard! How the hell does Watari do it? After washing three dishes, Tooru wants to take a break.

_ No, keep pushing! Iwa-chan is a man of simple pleasures. He’s going to love it!  _

He inhales through his nose and continues scrubbing at dried sauce on a plate, sleeves rolled up.

That’s how the next few hours go; Tooru cleaning, wanting to take a break, but ultimately continuing thanks to the kindness of his beautiful, pure heart. After doing the dishes, he wipes down the counter, then he picks up the sea of clothes and trash on the floor, then clears the coffee table, so on and so forth.

Cleaning becomes easier with time, almost an enjoyable, mindless task (keyword: almost). A few times, he goes to look at the time on his wrist, but ends up disappointed instead with no idea of how late it is.

He’s so focused that he doesn’t recognize the creak of the front door opening until Iwaizumi’s heavy voice carries through the living room.

“What the hell happened in here? Oikawa? Are you… cleaning?”

Tooru must have jumped a foot in the air at the interruption, dropping the magazine he was paging through to obviously decide whether to throw it away or not. Forcing his racing heart to calm, he forces a smile. 

“Iwa-chan! How was work?”

Iwaizumi’s forehead wrinkles endearingly. “Don’t dodge the question, dumbass. I didn’t think you were even capable of cleaning, but here you are. Why?”

_ Because your kindness to me is something I took advantage of. Because my clumsiness is what made you upset. Because you never yell at me when I deserve to be yelled at. Because— _

Tooru feels his face heat up as his mind sorts through words to say without seeming like he’s too soft or sappy, but fails miserably. After a few seconds, he settles on something with a nod to himself.

“Iwa-chan, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been less-than-pleasant company these past few days. I’m sorry that you have to deal with me like this, when I’m such a  _ mess  _ and don’t know how to cook and smell terribly.” Iwaizumi opens his mouth to say something, but Tooru cuts him off by speaking over him. “I am a mess, in more ways than one, so don’t you dare try and talk me out of that. I’m sorry I don’t like your cat, and I’m sorry I leave my dishes everywhere.

“I’m sorry I broke the statue of that husband’s wife.” Tooru keeps the wobble from his voice just barely. “Nothing I can say can change how terrible of a roommate I’ve been.”

“Oikawa, you don’t have to—”

“So I’ve decided to show my appreciation for you! Not every brute would take in a homeless guy in his twenties, no matter how beautiful, so I’m grateful for Iwa-chan’s kindness! And naivety, but they’re the same thing… anyways!”

Tooru grabs the bucket of clay from below the counter and drops it on top with a  _ thump _ . The momentary confusion on Iwaizumi’s face that morphs to an amalgamation of awe and wariness is picture-perfect, and Tooru’s stomach feels warm, like Picasso is nustling close to his skin.

Damn, he thinks, being a good, innocent man feels nice, especially with Iwaizumi incredulously looking between the clay and him and occasionally sputtering.

“How the— This costs a lot of— But look at this quality, holy shit. Oikawa, this shit isn’t cheap! I thought you were cut off? I can’t accept this, it’s too much.”

Tooru wants to facepalm. He puts his watchless wrist in his pocket and flicks Iwaizumi’s forehead with the other hand. 

“Don’t you know what to say when someone gives you a gift? I know you’re a caveman, but I thought you’d at least know basic manners.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t say anything, still silent while he pries open the container. Tooru hopes it’s a good kind of silence and not the I-Still-Can’t-Believe-Oikawa-Ruined-My-Statue-Silence. 

The longer that Iwaizumi doesn’t speak after easily ripping the lid off of the container (those biceps flex magnificently while doing so), the more uncomfortable Tooru gets. What if he’s still upset? Tooru wouldn’t blame him for holding a grudge—it’s deserved. No amount of yen can fix that he fucked up. Magnificently.

Maybe he should have done more than clean? What if Iwaizumi had a certain order to his mess that Tooru accidentally ruined? He was careful to not even go near the statues, but maybe he should have just bought more artsy things rather than clean.

A hand wraps around his wrist, stopping the incessant scratching of his pointer finger on his thumb. He didn’t even notice that he was pulling down a strip of skin, too lost in himself to recognize the sting.

_ Always thinking about yourself, Tooru. Selfish. _

“Stop overthinking things. I can basically see the gears turning in your head beneath that mop of hair.”

Tooru risks a glance back at Iwaizumi, but ends up lingering upon seeing a small smile on the other’s face. It steals his breath, taking away his ability to protest that he is most certainly  _ not  _ overthinking.

He tries not to stare—he really does—but fuck, Iwaizumi is one attractive man.

(That’s why he stares. Not because he’s relieved that Iwaizumi isn’t yelling at him or kicking him out. Not because the smile is like a rainbow after a year-long flood, a promise of more fingers dripping with hamburger grease and mornings spent with the patter of clay falling.)

“Thanks,” Iwaizumi grumbles, dropping eye contact to stare at the floor. “I mean it. I wasn’t mad at you before, I know that Picasso can be a little shit, especially to you. Not that I blame her, you're terrible to her. But seriously, thank you. Honestly, I haven’t been able to see my carpet since a week after I bought the place, and I never thought that you’d be the one to clean it.” 

Tooru blinks, mouth agape and unsure of what to say. How does one even reply to such genuine gratitude? It’s something he’s unfamiliar with, therefore it’s something he should be wary of.

“You’re… welcome. Iwa-chan.” He wants to shrivel and die upon hearing how hesitant he sounds, half-expecting Iwaizumi to reprimand him for his wimpy behavior. To tell him that he needs to speak with precision and intent, not like a child babbling their first few words.

But Iwaizumi just reaches a hand up to Tooru’s head and ruffles his hair, then grimaces. “Have you showered yet? I think I need to wash my hand now, it's, like, shiny. If you really want to do me a favor, clean yourself up a bit. You look like shit and smell even worse.”

“Why? There’s nobody else who’s going to see me. You don’t count,” Tooru says, a hand on his hip and head tilted to the side. 

It’s like a cloud descends over the room, casting a shadow over the good mood. Iwaizumi’s forehead creases, and he wipes his hand on his sweatpants. 

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to start caring for yourself more. I know you liked to primp and preen before—I can see the million hair products you brought with you—so why haven’t you used them?”

Tooru doesn’t want to talk about this. Not at all. 

He offers a strained smile. “Such a brute, Iwa-chan. I know I look a little under the weather, but my natural beauty shines through here!”

“Seriously, this can’t be healthy. It would be doing both of us a favor if you got yourself a routine.”

“Is Iwa-chan trying to be nice to me? That’s a change—”

“Stop!” Iwaizumi yells, and Tooru startles at the change in volume. His facade falters, grin falling to an honest ‘o’. “Stop trying to act like everything’s okay when it’s obviously not! You just got cut off from your wealth, disowned by your dad, and now you're living in a shitty apartment with someone you barely know! So cut this stupid act of ‘I’m perfectly fine despite the fact I sit in the same spot for twelve hours a day staring at a T.V.’ because it’s not fooling anyone but yourself, dumbass!”

His chest suddenly feels too heavy, the walls too tight. Iwaizumi too close. The next breath he takes has a stutter to it, and he hopes it’s not noticeable 

“Don’t be stupid. I’m fine. Honestly, it’s a relief to get away from the business.

“It was so annoying, being woken up by Yachi at six in the morning. I hated mornings, but Watari always cooked the most delicious breakfasts.” Tooru keeps talking, finding it hard to stop.

“Stop denying this—”

“I didn’t have to do much actual business work, but I handled being the face of the company and making bigger decisions. My father, of course, got to make the actually influential choices, but I was pretty close in rank. Going to those fundraisers and things is always so boring—that’s where I was before I went to the bar I met you at—but my father said that it was necessary for me to convince people to support us. He said that I had a ‘certain charm’ to me.” His face sours at the thought of his father, and it’s like a dam breaks in his head. His mouth is loose now.

The harsh lines of Iwaizumi’s face soften the longer that Tooru goes on, but thankfully, there’s no pity in sight. 

“I hated how my father always criticized me, but it was worse when he ignored me. It was the worst when he would talk about other people who… like men, without knowing I was one of them. I couldn’t… I couldn't stand by and watch it happen again with Akaashi and Bokuto. See? It’s a good thing I’m away from him. Right, Iwa-chan?” 

HIs voice wobbles at the end, and the ‘Iwa-chan’ is strangled, choked off with a sob Tooru had no clue was coming. Suddenly, his knees are weak, and he wipes a sleeve across his nose. Moisture absorbs into the soft fabric, but tears fall too fast for him to keep up with, blurring his vision.

He hates crying. He hates crying even more when it’s in front of a near-stranger.

But Iwaizumi just lays his hands on Tooru’s shoulders and gently guides him to the couch. It’s wordless, his means of comforting Tooru, but it’s there—there in the hand rubbing his back, there in the sturdy pillar of support he provides.

“Iwa-chan, if you hadn’t— If you hadn’t invited me to your home, I don’t know—” A sniffle. “—what I would have done. Thank you, I’m so sorry for ruining it.”

That’s when Iwaizumi finally decides to step in. His voice is steady and leaves no room for argument when he says, “I told you already, stupid, it’s fine. Stop apologizing, you probably fixed more stuff than you think you ruined. Just please don’t cook again. And I did what anyone would do.”

Tooru huffs a shallow, wet laugh at Iwaizumi’s expense. The man is so straightforward that he thinks that just anyone would invite a one-night stand to live with them. Iwaizumi glares at him with no heat.

“Not everyone invites a stranger to live with them,” Tooru says simply.

A moment passes in comfortable silence. Then, “Do you think we’re strangers?”

Tooru looks over at Iwaizumi at the strange question. His face is strangely blank, but Tooru can see he’s thinking something over. 

“We’re not  _ strangers _ strangers, but I really know nothing about you. My entire life story is on a Wikipedia page for you to read, but you? I know nothing about you other than you know how to cook and are average at sculpting,” Tooru says, slightly unsure of his answer.

After that, nobody talks for a few minutes, basking in the sound of the ceiling fan whirring and Picasso occasionally mewling for attention. It’s a comfortable quiet, one that Tooru utilizes to get his tears under control.

“When I was sixteen, I came out to my parents. I thought they would take it well, you know? They were never anything but nice to me.”

Tooru can’t help but look over at Iwaizumi, wide-eyed and slack-jawed in surprise. Iwaizumi just stares forward, past the T.V..

“Me coming out brought out a different side of them. I was kicked out that night.”

“I’m sorry,” Tooru murmurs, looking down at the carpet and fiddling with his fingers. Familiar story, but not quite.

Iwaizumi doesn’t acknowledge Tooru’s weak apology. “I was on the streets for a little while. Got in debt to some powerful people. Not as powerful as your dad—I’d never be able to pay something to a man like him, it’d be huge—but here, this guy’s… at the top of the food chain. I’m still paying him off, you know. That’s why every single commission I get, I need to take care of, because it’s  _ hard  _ here. I need all the yen I can get.”

Everything makes sense, like Tooru just put on a pair of glasses and can finally see. Iwaizumi being overly-strict about Tooru not touching his work, the shitty apartment he lives in despite his work being easily worth over 30,000 yen for a sculpture of a head—all of it clicks. 

Tooru wants to say something, wants to comfort Iwaizumi, but Iwaizumi beats him to speaking. “There. Now I don’t think we’re strangers anymore. For the record, I didn’t look up your Wiki page.”

The playful Iwaizumi is back, no longer muffled by waves of bad memories drowning it out. Tooru knows how to handle playful Iwaizumi. This he can do.

“Why not? My Wiki page is great. There’s good pictures of me on there for all to admire. You’d like them, I look great.”

Iwaizumi chuckles, and Tooru looks over at him—he’s smiling now. Small, close-lipped, but still a smile. It’s contagious. Tooru realizes that he’s smiling too, completely vulnerable, and hurriedly wipes it from his face. He’s used to pulling fake smiles, but this one feels much more wrong than the ones he gives elderly businessmen and his father, like his lips are peeled back painfully and his face is rejecting it. 

He assumed Iwaizumi wouldn’t notice. Nobody else ever notices when Tooru switches from being genuine to plastic, but of course he does.

“You don’t have to do that here. Hide what you're feeling or whatever. Your fake smiles are ugly, so get rid of them. Aren’t you supposed to be a pretty boy? That makes you look like a feral animal.”

“Oh, I’m supposed to be a pretty boy?”

“Just get in the shower, dumbass. I’ll make something to eat, then you are getting in that goddamn bed and sleeping. Your eyebags are huge.”

Tooru scowls, looking at Iwaizumi disdainfully. “Do you have a filter? Everything you say is vicious. My eyebags are not that bad!”

Iwaizumi snickers like Tooru said something funny. Tooru stands from the couch and glares down at Iwaizumi, then says, “Why are you laughing?”

“I just think it’s ironic that  _ you’re  _ the one saying I have no filter. Have you heard the shit you’ve said to me? Like how you’ve described my apartment?”

“A shower sounds really nice right now, Iwa-chan, don’t you think?” 

“Whatever, as long as you get rid of that musk of yours.”

Tooru stands up and cracks his knuckles, stiff from hours of scrubbing dried clay from the counters. He says, “My musk is still better than yours. You smell like the food I cooked.”

“I’m not cooking you anything.”

“I take it back.”

“Fine, fine.”

Closing the door to the bedroom after flipping Iwaizumi the bird, he lets out a long breath and threads his hands in his hair. Well, today was stressful. Great going Tooru. 

But he and Iwaizumi crossed some unknown line earlier. They aren’t strangers anymore, he thinks, and that’s for the better. He hopes. 

The sound of sizzling is heard from the other side of the door followed by a raspy humming. It sends a warm feeling to the tips of his toes, and he thinks he recognizes it as fondness. Not like his blind respect for his father or admiration for Sugawara, but an appreciation that Iwaizumi is  _ there _ .

Grabbing his bag full of hair-care supplies, he steps into the bathroom and turns the shower dial until steam should fog the mirror in minutes. He peels himself from the stale clothes lazily and chucks them next to the toilet. 

And then he washes himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO ill tell you this for a fact my dear readers, the next chapter will not be out so swiftly. comments always help me work faster though, so if you liked this chapter, pls tell me!!
> 
> okay bye bye for now hehehehehe

**Author's Note:**

> help ive never written smut before and i couldnt bring myself to reread it so pls have mercy. also, as a bi person, it's rly hard to write internalized homophobia because i know that none of it is true!! we are all amazing and special and beautiful in our own ways, so be yourself! fuck people like mr. oikawa he's a little bitch. we are who we are, and that's what makes us uniquely beautiful.
> 
> also i have commitment issues so there is no guarantee when, or even IF, this fic will be finished, but comments are always inspirational! not to be a beggar or anything but i LOVE READING COMMENTS SO PLEASE COMMENT THINGS—
> 
> *clears throat* anyways as i was saying comments help me to write faster soooo... you know... do your thing please! i love critique so please go ham


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